


the start of sunrise

by sapphictomaz



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Angst, Character Death, F/F, Fantasy, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic, Quests, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:34:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 59,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26500714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphictomaz/pseuds/sapphictomaz
Summary: John Murphy is a demigod who has been alive for the past two millennia, traveling to the ends of the earth on a quest to gather a select bunch of magical artifacts from the gods themselves in order to cast a spell he isn't sure he's capable of casting. Oh, and the only man he's ever loved has been cursed to hunt him down for all eternity until they both end up dead. Should be simple, right?
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/John Murphy, Clarke Griffin/Lexa, Emori/Raven Reyes, Monty Green/Jasper Jordan
Comments: 29
Kudos: 49





	1. one.

**Author's Note:**

> hello!! thank you all for giving this fic a go!! i appreciate it a lot. before we begin:  
> 1) the chapter introductions/summaries are all quotes from richard siken. maybe that's cliche but it's my fic i do what i want  
> 2) the biggest thanks goes out to oogaboogu & blueparacosm for this one!! they're both incredible people who have been nothing but encouraging, throughout my whole time as a murphamy writer. please go check out their works!  
> 3) ** warnings for this fic include violence, some gore (nothing more than the show itself), and, as is in the tags, death **  
> 4) i hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.  
> These, our bodies, possessed by light.  
> Tell me we'll never get used to it.

**Then-;**

Once upon a time, there was a boy.

Once upon a time, there were gods and magic and monsters and all of those horrible things that last forever, and right in the middle of it, there was a boy born of fire and a boy born of love. In a lifetime full of these horrible forever sort of things, there had always been love, but - nobody ever seemed to remember that part. 

Yet horrible or not, there were gods, then, and they were not so careful about the mortals they spent time with. Creatures that were half-god and half-man were common and this is how the boy of fire was forged, set loose upon the mortal world despite the flames in his eyes and the inferno in his soul. 

“You have a responsibility to man,” his father said to him, from high up on his godly throne in the mountains. “One day, your destiny will come and collect you.”

“I didn’t ask for this,” said the burning boy. 

“Nobody ever does,” said the god of fire, and such were the last words a father ever said to his child. 

Alone, he wandered the mortal realm, until one day he found a field full of flowers and trees tall enough to touch the clouds and a boy in the center of it all, a bow on his back and a heart big enough for them both. He was mortal and momentary and quite imperfect, but then he smiled and none of this seemed to matter. 

For a while, everything was fine. For a while, there were fields and flowers and laughter loud enough to fill the world, but - as all good things are, it was all momentary, nothing more than a fleeting second in time. For a while, everything was fine, but this was followed by curses and pain and tragedy and all of those horrible things that last forever. 

But - no matter. That was then. Two-thousand years later, this is 

**Now-;**

_ I get knocked down, but I get up again… _

A smile tugs at the corner of Murphy’s lips as he gently sets his empty glass down on the bar counter. The Chumbawamba song blares through the speakers and overhead a giant neon sign flickers in and out, bathing the whole place in a washed out purple.  _ Arkadia Bar,  _ it reads, as if anyone who stops at a bar in the middle of nowhere cares what it’s called. 

“I get knocked down,” Murphy mumbles along to the song, tapping his foot against the broken wooden floor. He’s only had one drink tonight, but the song makes him nostalgic enough to reminisce over happier times, and so he makes the perhaps misguided decision to have as many as it takes to send himself into a blissful stupor. He taps the glass, waiting for the bartender to fill it back up, but nobody comes over and it remains empty. When he looks up, there’s nobody behind the bar at all, the bartender having vanished to the backroom who knows how long ago. 

Murphy sighs, leaning back on the barstool and pushing the empty glass forwards, so that it sits out of his reach. It figures. 

The glow of the old neon sign illuminates his surroundings and the song starts to fade out. He closes his eyes and tips his head upwards, allowing the electronic warmth to sink into his skin. His bag of supplies sits on his back, weighing him down only slightly. Behind him, a small recurring  _ thump _ of a dart hitting a dartboard plays on repeat and two other people sit at a table close to the bar. They’re getting ready to leave, raising their voices just enough as they do so that Murphy can hear their conversation. 

“Have you been watching that guy over there?” one of them is saying. 

“Yeah, the one playing darts?” his friend replies. 

“Yeah! It’s crazy, he’s been going all evening.”

Murphy raises a brow at this. It’s nearly midnight, now, meaning that the dart player has been playing for hours on end. “He’s been in here all the time lately,” comes the response. “Got some real skill.”

“He never misses a shot, that’s for sure,” the first one says, and even though his tone is light, every muscle in Murphy’s body tenses and he stills, eyes opening. The neon purple light from the sign still shines onto him but suddenly, it doesn’t feel so warm. 

He turns, but the two people that were talking have already left, the door swinging shut behind them with a soft  _ click.  _ It rattles on its hinges for a second and then falls quiet. The entire bar sits utterly still, a dull  _ hum _ of the neon sign the only sound to be heard. Before, where there was once a steady beat of darts hitting the board, there is only silence. 

The bartender is gone. Everyone except for himself and the dart player is gone. The Chumbawamba song ended minutes ago, but another one has yet to play. “Should have known,” Murphy mutters. It’s been countless years of this - he knows exactly what’s happening, and he knows exactly who is in the bar with him, but there’s a moment where he can’t decide whether or not he wants to turn around. 

He wants to see him. He wants to see him more than he wants to draw in his next breath, but - he doesn’t want to experience what he knows will happen next, not again. 

“The man who never misses,” he decides to say, loudly, so that he knows the man by the dartboard is listening. Still, Murphy faces the door, reluctant to turn the barstool. “After two thousand years, you’re still going by that moniker, huh?”

There’s only silence behind him. Murphy sighs, knowing that the confrontation is inevitable. He could walk out the door, right this second, and leave the bar behind but then there’s no telling how many years would pass before he’d get a chance to see him again. He can’t give that up. He’s never been strong enough, so - he turns around. 

“Hi, Murphy,” the man says, holding a single dart in his right hand. 

Murphy smiles. “Hi, Bellamy,” he says. “Nice to see you again.”

Bellamy just hums, making eye contact for a second before he looks down, starting at the dart that he’s holding in his fingers. It’s enough, though - they lock eyes for just long enough that Murphy’s heart skips a beat and electricity crackles underneath his skin. He looks just the same as he did the last time they met, his brown eyes just as immersive. It’s all part of the curse, Murphy knows, but it comforts him, just a little, that he hasn’t changed. “I’m sure,” he finally replies. 

“How long has it been this time?” he asks, doing his best to relax his tensed muscles. Murphy asks this as if he doesn’t know, as if he hasn’t been keeping track, as if he doesn’t only want the conversation to last as long as it can - as long as the curse permits them. 

There’s a pause as Bellamy thinks this over, still keeping his eyes to the floor. If he doesn’t look at him, then it allots them just a little bit more time, but Murphy aches to lose himself in his gaze yet again. “Paris was the last time,” he says. “Six or seven years ago.”

Murphy winces, remembering his last stint in Paris. He’d been so sure that what he’s spent a century searching for would be there that he’d spent years aimlessly wandering the streets, only to come up empty every single day, and then burn down a cafe when Bellamy had inevitably found him. “Right, Paris,” he sighs. “The mortals call it the city of love, you know.”

“I’m a mortal.”

“It’s been thousands of years of this, Bellamy, so I sure hope you aren’t.”

Bellamy still refuses to look at him, but his hand clenches angrily around the dart, turning his nails white. “I used to be.”

“I know.”

“Did you know that I haven’t slept for two thousand years?”

Murphy blinks, pausing. He does know. He knows very well the ins and outs of the curse, but even after all this time he’s never quite figured out what to say about it. “I know.”

“I can’t sleep,” he repeats, “because that would be time I could be spending to track you. I can’t eat, or drink, not willingly, because that’s a waste of time, too.”

“Bell, I-”

“I move around, from place to place, until my body gives out on me and only then can I rest. Only then do I get a moment, a reprieve, and then it happens all over again.”

He knows. He  _ knows _ , but it’s not like he can do anything about it. “I’m sorry,” he says. 

Bellamy looks up then, finally. There are dark circles under his narrowed eyes, and his brow is furrowed in anger, but underneath all of it, somewhere deep down, he’s still Bellamy. He’s still the man that Murphy’s known, all this time. “How?” Bellamy snaps. “You don’t know what this is like. You don’t know what any of this is like for me.”

“No, I don’t.”

Murphy’s the son of the god of fire, but flames dance in Bellamy’s eyes. “This is all your fault. I hope you know that.”

“I do.” The bag of supplies and items he’s collected over the years seems to grow even heavier.  _ I’m going to fix this,  _ he wants to say, but he knows that it would only put them both in more danger. 

Bellamy’s muscles tense even more. The edges of his eyes grow darker, a reminder that they don’t have much time left. “I hate you,” he says. 

“You don’t,” Murphy says, but he can’t deny the way his chest tightens. 

“You ruined my life. You  _ ruined _ me.”

“For the man who never misses, you sure don’t get the point,” Murphy sighs. “Look, sit down, why don’t you? Have a drink with me. There’s not a lot of choice here, but there are worse places for a date, don’t you think?”

Bellamy’s mouth tightens. He’s struggling, straining against invisible forces, and though he’s seen it happen before, it makes Murphy’s heart hurt. “You and I both know I can’t do that.”

“Give it a try,” he says. “For me?”

For a second, Bellamy’s eyes soften, and he thinks he sees a sliver of longing in them. For a second, he’s just a boy in a field, offering him a flower - but it’s gone a moment later. Like all things concerning the two of them, Murphy can’t tell if it really happened, or he just wanted it to. “You’re an idiot, Murphy.”

He’s about to speak, but then -  _ thump.  _ A rush of air flies by his face and when he blinks, the dart is no longer in Bellamy’s hand. Instead, the sharp point is buried in the wall behind him. Less than an inch to the right, and it would have been buried in Murphy’s neck, instead. 

“Oh, Bellamy,” he whispers, “you missed.”

There’s no time, then. Bellamy lunges forwards, a deep-seeded anger in his eyes and movements as the curse takes hold. Murphy jumps out of his seat, checking only to make sure his bag of belongings is still on his back before throwing the bar stool to the floor, a futile attempt to block Bellamy’s way. “I hate you!” Bellamy yells, his voice low, full of pain and malice. 

The exit is behind Murphy, but he doubts he can make it there before he’s caught up to. “Don’t make me burn this place down, too,” he yells, but Bellamy’s bounding over the fallen barstool, showing no signs of slowing down or stopping. He’s weaponless, but in a direct hand-to-hand confrontation, Murphy knows he doesn’t stand a chance. 

He sighs, making a fist, feeling the sudden warmth that spreads across his skin. “Sorry, Bell,” he says, and then he opens his hand, revealing the flame that now dances on his palm. He throws his hand outwards, willing the fire to move exactly where he wants it to, and within seconds there’s a solid line of tall flames separating the two of them, stopping Bellamy in his tracks. 

The flames are just low enough that he can still clearly see Bellamy’s eyes over them. He backs up towards the door, slowly, and while he knows that he should be running into the night by now he can’t bring himself to look away. The man he’s looking at isn’t Bellamy, not really. The man he’s looking at wants nothing more than to bury him six feet under, and only wears the face of the boy who had once given him flowers. 

At least - Murphy thinks so, anyways. He likes to think that there’s a distinction between the Bellamy he knows and the Bellamy that tries to kill him every so often, but maybe there isn’t. Maybe they are one in the same, and all these years he’s just been fooling himself, pretending that if he completed his self-given quest he’d change the cycle and they could return to how they once were. Maybe Bellamy will stop at nothing to kill him, even then. Maybe he does hate him. 

But - he missed. He always misses. 

Bellamy’s still focused on the fire that’s now spreading across the bar, threatening to burn the whole structure down. He looks at Murphy once through the flames, smiles ominously, and then races over to the one window at the other side, sending his fist through the glass and smashing it open. Somehow, the cuts on his hand from the broken glass don’t bother him and he sends one last devilish grin Murphy’s way before he starts clambering through the window, somehow forcing his body to fit through a space that it really shouldn’t. 

The fire continues to destroy the bar, the loud crackling of splintering wood snapping Murphy back to reality. Right - he really should be running by now. 

He crashes through the door, his bag jostling on his back as he runs. It’s now that he remembers the bar is quite literally in the middle of nowhere, off a dirt road on the outskirts of a town nobody’s ever heard of. There are no cars or bikes in the lot that he can steal, and in front of him is only a dense forest, stretching far into the night. This, quite clearly, is not turning out to be his finest moment. 

Guilt tugs at his heart as he realizes what he’s got to do. It hasn’t been all that long since he last called for their help, and he hates to put them in danger, but he can’t see another choice in front of him. Even on foot, Bellamy will outrun him. Quickly, he rifles through his bag, pulling out a small glass container full of a dozen or so purple flowers. He takes only one of them out, carefully putting the container with the others back in his bag. 

Behind him, at the back of the blazing bar, is a loud  _ thump _ as Bellamy finally makes it out the window and lands on the ground. “Shit,” Murphy curses, pulling his bag back onto his shoulders and taking off towards the forest. In his right hand, he crushes up the purple crocus flower, scattering its petals in the chilled night air as he runs faster than he ever has. 

“O, Emori!” he cries, as loud as he possibly can. He knows that Bellamy will hear him and follow him into the woods, but when it comes to summoning Emori, the louder one yells, the better. “Gracious daughter of Hermes and Iris, guardian of the path,” he continues, pausing only to take a breath or duck from the odd tree branch obscuring his way, “I pray to you now for safe passage!”

He drops the last of the flower behind him, and still he runs, repeating the prayer in his mind on repeat. “Please,” he whispers, the sound of Bellamy’s footsteps growing closer. He keeps moving forwards. In front of him, the trees break up into a clearing and he dashes into it, glancing up at the sky, waiting for a rescue he’s starting to fear will never come. 

“Anytime would be good!” he cries, scanning the clearing, becoming more and more desperate as he sees nothing at all until - there it is. “Finally,” he mutters, approaching. 

A large snake slithers across the dirt, coming right towards him. Bellamy’s footsteps grow closer but he does his best to pay them no mind, instead leaning down next to the snake, outstretching his arm. “Make this quick, please,” he sighs, turning his head away and preemptively wincing as he thinks about what’s to come. Bellamy may be bounding through the woods to find him and kill him, but this bit here is always his least favourite part. 

The snake hisses. There’s a quiet moment, and then it sinks its fangs deep into Murphy’s offered arm, latching down on him and holding him tight. He curses, the blinding pain forcing him down to his knees. His vision starts to blur and though his left arm is still trapped tight in the snake’s jaws, he puts his right hand on the forest floor, a desperate attempt to ground himself. “Of all things,” he hisses, “it has to be a fucking  _ snake _ .”

He blinks once, twice, and then when he looks up, she’s standing in front of him. Emori’s standing tall as ever, wearing a dark blue gown that somehow shimmers in the night. She peers down at him, annoyed, but also somewhat concerned. “Again?” she asks. 

“Again,” he confirms, blindly reaching upwards with his right hand until she takes it in hers. A thick black glove covers it and he holds onto the material tightly, refusing to let this lifeline go. 

She nods, though her eyes are sad. “Raven’s waiting. Get ready.”

Murphy swallows, preparing himself the best he can. Emori may be the goddess of journeys and pathways, and she may be able to transport herself and those that pray to her across the world, but as a passenger, her trips have never been smooth. 

Just once, he looks up, locking eyes with Bellamy who has just made it to the edge of the clearing. He stands still, watching Emori carefully, knowing that he has no say in what a goddess does and knowing he can do nothing to stop Murphy’s escape. If he looks carefully through the night, Murphy thinks that a single tear slides down his cheek as he watches them. 

Then, Emori’s grip on his hand tightens, the forest floor vanishes from below him, and he’s somewhere else entirely. 

Murphy never has and never will get used to the disorientation that follows one of Emori’s trips. When he opens his eyes, sunlight streams into them, so brightly that it stings. Wind whips by his face, meaning he’s up high, somewhere, half a world away from where Bellamy is no doubt standing alone in the clearing, setting off to follow him here on foot. 

Slowly, he stands on weak knees, pushing down the vertigo that threatens to overwhelm him. It’s now that he sees they’re on the side of a mountain. Cities sprawl out below them, and a small cottage sits nestled on the mountain path only a few yards away. He’s been to this safehouse before, he thinks, but after the sudden trip he can’t quite focus on when he was last here. The snake, at least, has been left behind in the clearing, though his arm still stings and the wound from the bite is still there. 

“Murphy!” 

Raven’s standing in the doorway of the cottage, and when she calls out he smiles. “It’s been too long,” he says as she approaches. 

A bright red jacket hangs over her shoulders, and it looks like in the time since he’s last seen her, she’s made some changes and improvements to the metal brace that supports her bad leg. “Not long enough,” she says, but she throws her arms around him in a deep embrace anyways.

She turns her attention to Emori, then, who smiles. “It was a close one,” she says, coming over to Raven and taking her hand gently. “He’s lucky I heard him when I did.”

“I would have made it,” Murphy grumbles. 

Raven rolls her eyes. “I’m sure,” she says, giving Emori a quick kiss and then putting her arms around her, holding her close, before she looks over at Murphy again, eyes focusing on his wound and overall dishevelled appearance. “Come on inside - let’s get this sorted.”

“Thank you,” he says, to them both. 

“Anytime,” Emori replies, “you know that.”

Raven smiles. “Yeah - can’t let my half-brother be taken out by some stupid curse.”

It’s his turn to roll his eyes. “So if I get taken out by any other means, then you’re fine with that?”

“Of course,” she says, gently hitting his arm before taking Emori’s hand once again and walking towards the cottage. “Oh, and - you’re not going to be alone this time.”

“What do you mean?” he asks, following them across the gravel path, taking a second to stare down at the world far below. Raven and Emori’s safehouses were always in undisturbed parts of the world that nobody else would find, but even for them, this one is extreme. 

“We’re helping someone else,” Emori says. “She’s here, as well. Don’t worry - Clarke’s nice.”

_ Clarke.  _ The name sounds familiar, but he can’t quite place it. “Who’s that?”

“Maybe if you’d been on Olympus at all in the past century, you’d know.”

“Oh, low blow, Reyes.”

She just smirks. “Clarke’s a minor goddess,” she says. “If she wants to tell you what happened, then she can.”

Emori opens the cottage door, and he’s about to enter, but then hesitates. “If someone else is here - maybe I shouldn’t be. I don’t want to put more people in danger.”

Raven raises a brow. “So you can put us in danger, but not Clarke?”

He knows she doesn’t mean it like that, but the feeling of guilt comes back. “I’m-”

“I’m kidding,” she interrupts him. “We’re fine. Clarke is fine. Bellamy is half a world away. Now, get inside - you’re bleeding all over my porch.”

He hadn’t noticed, but the snake bite had been worse than he’d thought, and blood was dripping from the wound. “Your fault for having snakes as a sacred animal,” he says to Emori. 

“Oh, please - at least I  _ have _ a sacred animal.”

He concedes the point with a gentle laugh, readjusting his grip on his bag of supplies as he enters the cottage.  _ One day, I’ll free you,  _ he thinks, mind drifting to what he’s been carrying with him for years on end.  _ One day, I’ll free both of us - and then this can all be over.  _

For now, though, he’s merely a boy born of fire, doing his best to make it through a world and a destiny that wants absolutely nothing to do with him. For now, he’s seeking shelter with his half-sister and her goddess girlfriend in a cottage on a mountaintop. For now, Bellamy is alone in a forest in the middle of the night, trudging through the wild in order to get another chance at murdering him, but at least he’s safe, alive, and in one piece. 

For now - that would have to be enough. 


	2. two.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river  
> but then he's still left with the river.  
> A man takes his sadness and throws it away  
> but then he's still left with his hands."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** warnings for this chapter for mentions of suicide & suicidal thoughts **

**Then-;**

Once upon a time, a demigod named John Murphy stood in a field of white flowers. He let out a long sigh from his lips as he stood with his back against the trunk of a tree, looking upwards at the bright sun in its highest position. Warmth spread down from the sky and into his skin and despite the gods that he knew sat above the clouds, Murphy looked up and he smiled. To feel warm, to have the sun soaking into his skin - he knew of nothing better. 

Though - despite the serenity, and despite the peace of the moment, a sliver of doubt crept up his spine. He knew of nothing better, maybe, because he’d experienced so few purely good things to begin with. 

Murphy was a bastard child, of sorts. His mother was mortal, but his father was Hephaestus, the god of fire and forges. Normally, this would allow him to live in the mortal world without problem, but when his father returned back to his throne on Olympus, his mother had been unable to cope with the abandonment and took her own life. Murphy never really knew her, but it made him angry to think of how she made that choice with no concern as to what would happen to him. 

So - he’d been permitted to live on Olympus, until he’d turned thirteen and Hephaestus had grown tired of his presence.  _ I didn’t ask for this,  _ Murphy had told him, but it didn’t matter. He’d always been half-in and half-out of the mortal world, by patronage and blood, but after that he lost all access to his godly half except for his loose control over the element of fire, which scared him so much he tried not to use it unless he had to. 

He was older now, and though he most likely could visit Olympus easily and even try to claim a place there, he didn’t dare bother. After how they had treated him, he would take an aimless life in the mortal world over a life in the clouds. Besides, he had Raven down here. Her godly parent was also Hephaestus, and while she had her own life and concerns, they crossed paths often enough. 

The sun, high above in the sky, beat down on his face. Maybe it was true, that he didn’t know many things that were good, but - at least he knew this. 

_ Thump. _

A rush of air went by his face and his eyes flew open at the sudden sound. Carefully, he looked to his left, his blood running cold when he saw the shaft of an arrow, the tip embedded in the tree trunk only an inch or so from his head. 

Murphy stood up straight, opening his palm and conjuring a small flame in it. The sudden rush of heat and power scared him still, even though he’d been able to control it for years. There was so much destruction tied in to such a small light, and he knew he was not the right person to deserve such a power, however godly his blood claimed to be. 

“For a god, you’re pretty dense.”

His head snapped towards the right, eyes landing on a boy around his own age, standing at the other end of the field of flowers. He was holding a bow and there was a quiver of arrows on his back, clearly marking him as the one who had taken the shot. Despite the fact he had just attempted murder, though, he wore an easy smile on his face as he ran a hand through his dark curly hair. 

Murphy’s eyes narrowed. “For a mortal,” he snapped, “you’re pretty brave.” 

The stranger just shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it?”

He scoffed, reaching up to the shaft of the arrow embedded in the tree trunk with his free hand and snapping it off for emphasis. “You missed.”

“I never miss,” came the reply, and the boy had the nerve to look offended. 

“Considering I’m still alive, I think you did.”

“I wasn’t trying to  _ kill _ you. I just wanted your attention.”

Murphy raised an eyebrow. “Well - you have it. So, what is it that you want, huh?”

The stranger blinked. “Since when do gods offer things freely to mortals?”

“I’m not a god, you idiot.”

Somehow, this made him smile. “Are you sure about that?” He gestured to Murphy’s open palm, in which a tiny little flame was still dancing, anxious to be let loose upon the world and burn it all down. 

With a roll of his eyes, Murphy closed his fist, wordlessly extinguishing the fire. “If you’re looking for a god,” he said, “then it’s my father you want, not me. So, what is it? You want me to pass on a prayer? A message? A complaint, an offering?”

“No,” he said, taking a step forward through the field of flowers to stand closer to him. In spite of the potential murder attempt that had just happened only a minute previous, Murphy didn’t mind his approach - in fact, if he were honest with himself, he would have realized he preferred it. “But if that’s necessary for me to keep talking to you, then alright.”

Godly blood ran in his veins, but Murphy had never felt so human. “None are required,” he said, after a long pause, “but all are appreciated, I’m sure.”

The boy hummed, coming even closer still until they were standing close enough to touch. With a shimmer in his eye, he leaned down and gently plucked a single white calla lily from the field of flowers. “An offering, then,” he said, holding the flower out for Murphy to take. 

After a moment’s hesitation, he reached out, gently holding the stem between two fingers. Their hands touched, only briefly, and though Murphy had just held living fire in his palm, he’d never felt a feeling so strong. “An offering,” he repeated, unable to do anything but stare at the picture-perfect white flower in his hand. “You want to give my father a flower?”

The boy scoffed. “I don’t know how I ever thought you were a god.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re not selfish enough.”

“I could be plenty selfish,” he protested, “when I want to be.”

“Sure,” the boy replied, and then with a dramatic sigh, he straightened his posture and cleared his throat. “Let me try that again. What’s your name?”

He looked him up and down, momentarily taken aback by the over the top display of propriety. “Murphy.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Murphy,” he said, dipping into a very slight bow. “My name is Bellamy, and it is an honour to make your acquaintance. Please, accept my  _ offering  _ as a token of my affections.”

Murphy’s throat was suddenly very dry and his head grew fuzzy, and for more than a second, he only stood there, holding the stem of a beautiful flower in front of a beautiful boy, unable to form a coherent sentence. “You are brave,” he finally managed, cringing internally at how soft his voice sounded. 

Bellamy stood straight once again, raising a brow. “Am I?”

“I might not be a god,” he replied, “but I  _ am _ half-god. I don’t know of any other mortal who would do all that for someone like me.”

At this, he smiled once again, a pure dazzling grin that somehow shone brighter than the white flowers all around their feet. “Then I guess,” he said, “I won’t have much competition, huh?”

Murphy chuckled, momentarily in awe at how Bellamy made him feel so at ease. “I guess not.”

A moment of silence passed, only one, before Bellamy stuck out his hand. “Come on,” he said. “I’ve got to be getting back home soon.”

His eyes widened at the offered hand. Murphy’s own palms, he knew, were nothing but destructive forces, and they weren’t meant for such a soft, mortal display of sincerity - yet, something inside him convinced himself otherwise, and he reached forwards, allowing Bellamy to clasp his hand around his own. “And why does a brave mortal like yourself need me to come along?” he asked, doing his best to swallow his awe and fear. 

“What, I can’t want some godly protection?”

“Half-god,” he reminded him, “and you’re a plenty talented archer, as you so elegantly showed me. What was it you said? You never miss?”

Bellamy laughed, pulling Murphy forwards so that they were side-by-side and hand-in-hand, walking through the field of flowers, the sun above them and a gentle wind running through the clearing. “The man who never misses,” he said, waving his free hand through the air in emphasis. “That’s what my village calls me, anyways. It’s a bit much, if you ask me, but they’re not wrong - I haven’t missed a target in years.”

“Ah, so not only are you brave, you’re humble, too.”

“Absolutely,” Bellamy replied, not missing a beat as he flashed him yet another smile. 

They walked through the forest path to Bellamy’s village just like that, and though the trip was short Murphy felt certain that he had never experienced such a calm, peaceful moment ever before in his life. 

“Welcome to my home,” Bellamy said as they passed the treeline and approached the border of the village. It was nothing more than several small homes and a few larger buildings in a half-circle, forming a centre in the middle for gathering, but the people walking through it seemed happy and to Murphy, it was perfectly beautiful. 

He was about to say something, but was interrupted by a younger girl racing towards them, her arms wide open. “Bellamy!” she yelled, and he laughed as she ran right into him, holding him tightly. “You’re back!”

“Hey, O,” he said, placing a hand on her shoulder as they broke apart. The resemblance between them was slight, but as they stood right next to each other, Murphy could tell they were brother and sister. 

“You didn’t bring anything back,” she said, but then she seemed to notice Murphy for the first time and a small smile crept onto her face. “Oh - I see.”

“Octavia-”

“You got  _ distracted _ .”

Bellamy shifted slightly, displaying his own human tendencies for the first time as a slight blush crept up his cheeks. “This is Murphy,” he said, “and he’s just here to say hello.”

“Hello,” Murphy said, right on cue. 

“Hi,” she replied, introducing herself as Bellamy’s younger sister, Octavia, and then she bounded away back the way she came, a light smile on her face. 

Bellamy ran a hand through his hair, a sign that Murphy now understood meant he was nervous. “She can be a lot,” he said, “but - she’s sweet, and might even be an archer someday.”

“Then you both can never miss.”

“Oh, in her dreams,” he said with a laugh. Then, slightly regretfully, he continued, “I really should be getting back, though. Thank you for walking me home, Murphy.”

He smiled, nervous enough himself. “Of course.”

Slowly, Bellamy let go of his hand and then started walking away backwards so they still faced one another. “Now you know where I live,” he called as the distance became almost too much to bear, “so you have no excuse not to visit me.”

_ I don’t need one,  _ Murphy thought, but he settled on just a grin as Bellamy turned, leaving him with one last image of his dazzling smile. As Murphy walked back past the treeline, he lifted his head towards the sky and let the setting sun soak its warmth into his skin. It was nice, he thought, to experience its warmth, but - he could think of at least one thing better. 

**Now-;**

“So,” Raven says, closing the cottage door behind her, “where were you this time?”

Murphy allows his half-sister and her girlfriend to lead him inside and sit him down on a big red sofa in the main room. The interior of the cottage is small and simple, with one large room and only a few other doors on the other end. There is somehow electricity, despite being near the top of a mountain, but several candles adorn the corners of the otherwise sparsely decorated room.

“America,” he finally says. “It might have been Nebraska.” He truly isn’t too sure. Absentmindedly, he wonders if the sofa is red so that it hides the drops of blood he’s doing his best not to let fall. 

Emori emerges from where she’d been in one of the other rooms, bringing bandages with her. “You’re right,” she says. “The nearest town was Valentine, Nebraska.”

He scoffs. “Valentine,” he repeats. “Isn’t that ironic?”

Raven slowly sits down in a rocking chair across from him, adjusting her bad leg into the most comfortable position she could manage. “Really?” she asks. “You thought the garden would be in  _ Nebraska?”  _

“Do  _ you _ have any better ideas?” 

“Yeah - about a million.”

He huffs, holding out his arm and allowing Emori to carefully clean the wound and wrap the bandages around it. “It’s been two thousand years of searching,” he says. “I think I’ve tried at least a million ideas by now.”

She sighs. “I suppose that’s fair, if you’ve really tried everything else.”

“Oh, believe me, I have.” Emori finishes what she’s doing, and though he nods his thanks, he can’t help but comment, “It doesn’t seem fair that your fancy tricks require a snake bite, but you can’t heal the mark.”

“If I had a better way of pinpointing your exact geographic location, I would do it,” she assures him. “But what’s great service without a little fee, anyways?”

He glares at her, though she does nothing but smile at him as she stands, walking back to the side room to put the rest of the supplies back. “Right,” he says, “I’ll just - I’ll gather my bearings a bit, and then I’ll be on my way again.”

Immediately, Raven scowls. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Raven-”

“First of all, you’re my brother, so I’m allowed to say that,” she says, “and second of all, even you need to rest, Murphy. This is a safehouse for a reason. We’ve been running these for over a thousand years, and we’ve never had a problem.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Sure - except that time where Bellamy found us and I burned your house in Cairo down in a panic.”

“Yeah, fair-”

“And then there was the time in Bangkok, where-”

“Murphy.”

“Do you even want me to bring up São Paulo?”

“I get it!” she snaps, and then sighs, long and slow. “Okay, fine. It’s not completely safe. But the gods aren’t looking for us right now, and Bellamy is literally half a world away. He’s got to get here on foot, right? That’s part of it? So it would take him longer than you would even want to stay here, at the best of times.”

He’s silent for a second, melancholy sinking into his skin. “Don’t you get how that’s part of the problem?”

She turns her eyes to the floor. “Yeah. I know. But you can’t save him if you’re dead.”

“At this point, I wonder if that would make everything easier,” he sighs, rubbing his furrowed brow with one hand. 

“You know that-”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m aware of the second half of the curse,” he says. “He’s doomed to hunt me down for eternity to try and kill me, and if he  _ does _ kill me, or if one of us dies from any other means, the survivor has to wander the earth for the rest of their natural life until they drop dead. I know.”

Raven takes a breath. “So don’t - just don’t talk like that, okay? It wouldn’t be better, or easier, for anyone.”

Despite it all, he manages a smile for her. “Nice to know you care.”

“Oh, shut up,” she says, but she, too, smiles. 

Emori emerges then, once again, though she hovers in the doorframe of the side room, staring at them from her vantage point. “Clarke’s in the guest room,” she says. “Do you want to meet her? As long as you’re here, you’ll be sharing the room, anyways.”

He can’t help the way he sighs, tensing up ever so slightly. Murphy’s never been a fan of the gods or their affairs, and after everything, he’s grown to resent them regardless of his own parentage. Emori is, quite literally, the only exception. Whatever trivial affairs occurred that resulted in a minor goddess having to seek temporary shelter, he’s sure that he doesn’t care. “It doesn’t matter.”

Rather than pay attention, he busies himself with taking his bag of supplies off his shoulder and placing it beside him, carefully opening the drawstring so he can take stock of what he’s got. Over on the other side of the room, Emori knocks quietly on one of the closed doors and Raven reclines in her chair and looks up, as if the simple light fixture above them and the candles all around them are equivalent to the warmth of the sun. He can’t help but chuckle as he sees this - she may have received a bad leg and mechanical abilities from their father whereas he got control of fire, but in this way, all children of Hephaestus are somewhat the same. 

The door to the guest room opens and Murphy glances up briefly. “This is Clarke,” Emori says, leaning against the wall as the newcomer hesitantly steps out of the room, a thin, guarded smile on her face. Her long blonde hair is the first thing he notices. It reaches down to her waist, half of it tied up in carefully placed braids. As she approaches them, she adjusts the dark jacket that hangs over her shoulders, wearing only a red dress underneath it. The clothing and the hair are all just fancy enough to scream out the fact that she is a goddess, but not fancy enough to mark her as a major or powerful one. 

“Hi,” she says, ignoring the unfriendliness in Murphy’s eyes as she slowly sits down on the other side of the sofa. “I’m Clarke.”

“Yeah, hi,” he says, putting more space in between them so that he can better go through the belongings in his bag and put them in front of him.

She pauses, waiting for him to speak, only continuing once she realizes he’s not going to. “And you are?”

“Murphy.”

“Murphy,” she repeats. “Real great to meet you.”

If he cared at all, he’d have noted her sarcasm. He only hums, completely ignoring Raven’s attempt at hiding her laughter behind him. Rather, he focuses on taking and inspecting the items in his bag, making sure that none of them were damaged in his latest encounter with Bellamy. After all, everything in this bag is his life’s work - he’s spent two thousand years searching, and these supplies, in this simple drawstring bag, are all he has to show for it. 

The first thing he takes out is the small glass case full of purple crocus flowers, one of Emori’s sacred objects, necessary to summon her. “If you have more of these,” he says to the goddess herself, “I’d love a few extra.”

“What, so you can keep calling me from across the world?” she says with a laugh, but then she nods, waving her hand to produce a half-dozen more of the flowers. Instead of walking across the room, she waves her hand once more and the flowers float through the air over to him, gently landing on the sofa beside the glass case. 

“Show-off,” he grumbles, but he nods his thanks. 

He takes out a smaller glass case next, almost identical to the first one, except inside this one is nothing but one small, white calla lily flower. It droops only slightly inside the case, a marker of its old age, and one of the petals is marred with a dark red dot. Murphy’s hesitant to put this one down on the sofa, but he does so carefully, keeping it close to him. 

Clarke’s eyes narrow in curiosity and she reaches out for the case. “What’s this?”

“Don’t touch that,” he snaps, and she instantly draws her hand away. 

“Sorry, I just-”

He sighs. “Just - don’t touch any of this, okay?”

“Don’t take it personally,” Raven tells her. “He’s very protective of all his stuff.”

Murphy rolls his eyes. “It’s not just  _ stuff _ ,” he says, reaching inside the bag and taking out a thin book next, the pages old and worn, the cover encrusted with brightly coloured jewels. “It’s for my quest, okay? I risked my life a thousand times over to get this ‘stuff,’ so I would rather it not be destroyed by some goddess who doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

“That’s just rude,” Clarke replies, quietly. 

“Am I wrong?” he asks. Vaguely, he’s aware that he’s already crossed a line, but he’s always thought the gods should have thicker skin. “You’re here and not on Olympus, aren’t you? Clearly something went wrong there.”

“Murphy,” Raven warns. 

He shrugs, and Clarke says nothing to defend herself, so he carries on looking through his belongings. A small piece of cloth is what he takes out next, and when he unwraps it, he reveals an even smaller piece of golden material. He notes Clarke’s eyes widening at this, but she still says nothing about it, so he fishes inside the bag and takes out his last item, a shimmering golden coin. With a sinking feeling, he realizes it’s his last one. 

“There’s a small stream, just down the mountain a ways,” Emori says, “if you’re looking to call Gaia.”

Murphy bites his lip for a second, turning the coin over and over in his fingers. It’s pure gold, and reminiscent of a time many millennia ago, which means that once it’s spent he doubts he’ll ever see another one. “I think I have to,” he finally says, “but I won’t be able to ask again.”

“Is that a good idea, then?” Raven asks. “She hasn’t exactly helped you before.”

“Maybe I just didn’t follow her advice quick enough,” he says. “Maybe this time, it’ll be different, if I just go as fast as I can.”

It’s a bit silly, to suggest that all the times before he hadn’t been going as fast as he could, but Murphy’s got to hold onto a sliver of hope - otherwise he’d lose his mind. After all, Gaia is the literal embodiment of the spirit of protection. There are twelve such spirits, all with different realms, and all with different methods of summoning, but only Gaia could locate the most protected and well-guarded place in the cosmos - the garden of the Hesperides, the very place he’d been trying to find for over a thousand years. She was the reason that he went to America in the first place, though that had evidently turned out to be a waste of time. 

Clarke finally speaks, breaking his thoughts. “I have to ask,” she says, “is that the Golden Fleece?”

He looks down at the small piece of golden material, then back up at her. She seems genuine enough, and if Raven and Emori both trust her with the location of one of her safehouses, then that should be enough for him, but he has to be sure. “Are you related to Nyx?” he asks. 

Her eyes narrow. “Nyx? No, of course not. She doesn’t have any children, except for the Hesperides.”

“I know,” he says, ignoring the way his stomach twists when he thinks about that connection, “but do you know her? Does she know you, at all, in any way?”

“No,” she repeats. “I’ve never met her, or even seen her.”

He nods, doing his best to lose the tension that had formed in his shoulders just from saying the name of the goddess of chaos itself. For a second, his mind flashes back to that day by the cave, where she’d come down to earth and ruined his and Bellamy’s lives forever.  _ I curse you,  _ she’d said,  _ to an endless hunt… _

“Murphy,” Raven says, gently, knowing exactly where he’d gone. 

“Right,” he says, clearing his head the best he can. “Then - yes. It’s a piece of the Golden Fleece.”

She lets out a long breath. “That’s got nearly unlimited healing properties,” she says. “Blessed by the gods themselves - how did you get  _ that _ ? More importantly,  _ why _ do you have that?”

He pauses for a second, looking her up and down. “Are you  _ sure _ you’re not a spy for Nyx?”

“She’s good,” Emori says, from her spot across the room. “You can trust her, Murphy - I promise.”

That’s enough for him, he supposes, and reconciles this with the fact that he doesn’t have to  _ like _ her. “Fine,” he says. “I got it a very long time ago, and I need it for part of my quest.”

“The gods don’t give out quests anymore,” she says. “Nobody has gone on a quest since-”

“Since the oracle...died, and the quest cycle was broken,” he finishes for her, doing his best to brush by that part of the story and not reveal his own part in it. “Yes, I know. This isn’t a god-given quest. This is my own, personal quest.”

Clarke laughs, dryly. “Alright, fine. So what is your own personal quest?”

“I’m trying to break a curse.”

“What kind of curse?”

He hesitates. “A god-given one.”

“Let me guess,” she says, “Nyx is the one that cursed you.”

Murphy nods, sharply. “So, you can see why I need the Golden Fleece.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Nyx is one of the most powerful gods of all time. I didn’t even know it was possible to break a curse like that.”

“That would be why it’s taken me over two thousand years,” he sighs, “and it’s still not done.”

She bites her lip, as if debating whether to give him sympathy or not, and then ultimately decides to skip that part. For this, he’s thankful - anyone’s pity, no matter how sincere, would only feel like a slap in the face. “So, you have the Golden Fleece for its healing properties,” she says, “that makes sense. What’s the rest of this stuff?”

“Hecate’s spellbook,” he says, gesturing to the old, thin book on the sofa. “It’s got the most powerful spells of all time in there - including one on breaking a curse.”

“And she just...let you have that?”

“Not exactly,” he says, “but she’s the literal goddess of magic. I’m sure it was plenty easy for her to just make another book.”

“Fair enough,” Clarke concedes. “The crocus flowers are for Emori, I know - what about the white one?”

Murphy tenses. “It’s for personal reasons,” he finally decides. 

She blinks, almost amused. “Right,” she replies, slowly, but thankfully drops it. “And the coin is to summon Gaia?”

“Yeah - it’s a golden drachma,” he says. “She’s picky like that.”

“Why Gaia? There’s eleven other spirits, and they all answer questions when summoned.”

He fights the urge to roll his eyes at her speaking to him as if he isn’t perfectly aware of that. “Gaia has the answer I need,” he says, “even though she’s incredibly cryptic about it.”

“They all are,” Clarke says. “Every single spirit, regardless of the question asked of them. It’s ridiculous. I think they take pride in it.”

“You’ve met them, then?”

“On Olympus, from time to time,” she replies. 

He hums. “I’m sure that’s so much fun.”

“Oh, it is,” she says. “You’d know that if you ever visited.”

“How would you know if I had or hadn’t been there?”

“I’m a goddess, in case you forgot,” she reminds him. “I was born there. I  _ live _ there.”

Murphy looks at her intensely, then gestures to the quaint cottage room. “Not anymore, you don’t,” he says, “If you’re here and not there, that only means one thing - you’ve been banished from the home of the gods themselves. And besides, aren’t you a  _ minor _ goddess? Probably the child of two other minor gods nobody cares about?”

She bites her lip, not proving him wrong, but he can tell she’s almost excited by the challenge to prove herself that he’s presenting her with. It’s not as though he’s the ultimate judge of character, but he too is having fun talking to someone willing to match him in verbal tenacity. “Maybe so,” she concedes, “but only one of us here was cursed by the goddess of actual chaos herself.”

“Touché,” he says, nodding slightly. 

Raven and Emori share an amused glance. “I thought you two might be at each other’s throats,” Raven says, “but I did not predict this.”

“What?” he asks. 

“I didn’t think you two would  _ like _ each other.”

“We don’t,” he and Clarke say at exactly the same time, making both of them glare at each other. Murphy rolls his eyes and breaks the eye contact as Raven starts to laugh, no longer attempting to hide it. 

Clarke shakes her head, then returns her attention back to his belongings, which he’s putting back in the bag now that he knows nothing is broken or harmed. “Anyways,” she says, “I’m guessing you still need at least one more thing, which is why you need Gaia’s help?”

“Yeah.”

She pauses. “Which is?”

“A secret.”

“Really? I thought we already did this.”

Miraculously, Raven interrupts them before they can begin the whole cycle again. “No, it does actually have to stay as secret as possible,” she says. “Nothing personal, but the more people that know, the harder it is.”

“Exactly,” Murphy says, “and it’s already pretty hard.”

Clarke raises her arms in surrender. “Alright, fine,” she says, “You want to summon Gaia? Let’s go summon Gaia.”

Raven and Emori glance at each other again and shrug, both moving towards the door. Clarke stands from the sofa, joining them. From his seat, Murphy just stares at them all as he slowly puts all his belongings back in the bag and puts it back over his shoulder, keeping out only the gold coin that he holds tightly in his hand. “I didn’t say you all could  _ come _ ,” he says, dryly. 

“Relax,” Raven says. “We’ve all met Gaia. It’s fine.”

“Besides,” Emori points out, “she doesn’t exactly like you very much. Having us there couldn’t hurt.”

Clarke breaks out in laughter, nearly doubling over. “Gaia doesn’t like you?” she cries, holding her chest. “What did you do to piss her off?”

He lets out a low breath, begging his dull anger to fade away before his palms catch fire and he not only melts the coin that could save his life, but also burns the whole cottage down - with Clarke inside. “What, and she likes you?”

“Yeah,” she replies, once she’s calmed down. “We’re friends, actually.”

“Isn’t that delightful,” he snaps, standing and walking briskly to the door. He pushes it open before anyone else has a chance to, giving them no choice but to follow him out. The wind hits him instantly and he takes a deep breath, allowing the fresh air to clean out his lungs and his soul. 

“Hey, Murphy!” Emori calls out, coming out the door next. “Have you forgotten that you don’t know where you’re going, or what?”

He clicks his tongue, unwilling to concede, but he has nothing to prove otherwise. “Fine,” he says, “after you, then.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“You sure you’re not going to make another snake bite me so we can be transported to the stream?”

“Better keep an eye out,” she says, passing him and starting on a path down the mountainside. Clarke walks by him as well, smirking ever so slightly as she joins her side. He sighs, then looks back just in time to see Raven stumble ever-so slightly on the uneven path down. 

He’s at her side in a second. “Here,” he says, offering his arm for support. 

“Thanks,” she says, taking it, and they move down the mountainside together. Raven’s bad leg was, unfortunately, genetic. A very long time ago, their father had fallen down the side of Mount Olympus (though some there at the time insisted he’d been pushed), and had permanently injured his leg as a result. Somehow, through some godly means, he’d passed this onto his daughter. Murphy knows it isn’t his fault that Raven’s leg is the way it is and his own is fine, but he can’t help the guilt that pulls at his heartstrings. He wishes he could take some of her pain and add it to his own. 

The stream that Emori had mentioned is very close to the cottage, and only a few minutes walk down the path. It’s quite small, and runs across the path and then vanishes somewhere into the rock, but it’s enough water to make the summons work. Raven and Emori both stand back a ways, as to not interfere, but Clarke stays close to the edge of the running water. 

Murphy hesitates, turning the coin over and over in his hand. It’s his last one - he knows he has to make this count. If Gaia’s answers led him to another dead end, then he has no other avenues and will have to resort to blind luck to find what he’s searching for. Quite literally, he’s holding his very last hope in his hand, and now he has to toss it into the water. Selfishly, he wants to hold onto it. He wants to keep it in his pocket for the rest of eternity, so that he can always say that he’s got some form of hope with him - so that, no matter what, an end to all this is always possible. 

But then an image of Bellamy fills his mind, and he knows with a horrible certainty that an endless hunt is no way to spend eternity, no matter how amusing Nyx seemed to find it at the time.  _ I’m going to save you,  _ he thinks, even though Bellamy is half a world away.  _ I’m going to save both of us.  _

“Are you going to do it, or what?”

Murphy exhales, frustrated. “Are you going to keep interrupting me, or what?” he snaps back to Clarke. 

She clicks her tongue. “I won’t, if you tell me what it is you’re searching for.”

“How about this - I’ll tell you what I need, and you tell me why you were banished from Olympus.”

Clarke looks like she’s about to speak, but then she closes her mouth and shakes her head, waving him on in silence. He can’t lie - he wants to know what went on with her, but if she’s going to respect his silence, then he’ll respect hers. 

He takes a deep breath, and then throws the coin forwards. It lands in the stream with a soft splash, and then it sinks until it’s completely out of sight. “Gaia,” he says, putting as much fake confidence in his voice that he can muster, “Spirit of protection, I summon thee.”

For a moment, nothing happens, but then he blinks and the water in the stream starts to shimmer. It glows, pieces of pure energy sparkling on its surface, and then where there was once nothing in front of them, suddenly there stands the image of a woman, hovering just above the water. Murphy knows that if he were to reach out and try to touch her, his hands would pass right through, but she still looks just as real as the rest of them. 

Gaia looks just the same as she did when he last summoned her, except for the bright smile that she wears on her face. This puzzles him for only a second before he realizes that she’s staring right at the goddess beside him. “Clarke!” she says, her melodic tone infinitely happier than he’d ever heard it before. “It’s great to see you again.”

“Hi, Gaia,” Clarke replies with an easy smile. “I hope things are alright on Olympus.”

“They are,” she says, “but they would be better if you were there, of course.”

Clarke’s expression grows pained. “I’d be there if I could.”

“Do not worry,” Gaia replies. “I am sure that Zeus will come around soon and welcome you back with open arms.”

“Maybe not open arms,” Clarke says, “but I hope so.”

Murphy’s eyes widen as he glances back and forth between the two. He had inferred that Clarke had been banished from Olympus, and her not disputing him earlier had proved that - but he would have never guessed that Zeus, the leader of all the gods himself, would have been the one to banish her. Whatever she’d done, it must have been huge to directly go against Zeus and earn her this punishment. Truthfully, this makes him respect her just a little bit more. 

Only now does Gaia glance over and realize that he’s standing there, her expression immediately souring as she looks him over. “Oh, it’s you,” she says, distastefully. “I was hoping never to see you again.”

“Always a pleasure, Gaia,” he sighs. “I, for one, love our chats.”

“Let us get on with it,” she says. “You know the rules - one coin for one question. I see you have paid with one coin. So ask me anything, Jonathan Murphy, and I will answer you to the best of my ability.”

He nods, rocking slightly on his heels, the weight of the question sitting heavy on his shoulders. He’s about to ask, when he glances over at Clarke again, and then refrains. She’s proven herself at least somewhat trustworthy, but he can’t risk his quest getting back to the gods of Olympus - and he certainly can’t risk putting more people in danger. “You know what I seek,” he finally says. “Where do I find it?”

Gaia raises a brow quizzically. “You have asked me this many times,” she says, “and each time, I have answered you - yet you always come back and bother me again.”

“Maybe because your answers are dead ends,” he snaps, “so I would appreciate some good information.”

Her gaze darkens. “If you would look right in front of you, you would know my information  _ is _ good.”

“Look, the past doesn’t matter - just tell me how to get there, and you’ll never have to hear from me ever again.” He doesn’t tell her that, no matter what, this  _ will _ be the last time she hears from him ever again. 

She sighs, and then stares intensely at him, clearly enunciating each and every word. “The answers you seek,” she says, “are already with you.”

His jaw drops, incredulously, and he gestures wildly around them. “Are you  _ kidding _ me? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re at the top of a mountain! Somehow I don’t think the entrance is here!”

“You have already found what you are looking for.”

“Gaia, please - I’m sorry if I’ve been rude to you, but this is bigger than just me. Please, just tell me, so I can end this and I can save his life!”

She seems to truly pity him as she stares at him, a deep sadness in her eyes. “I have told you everything I know,” she says. “Good luck.”

With that, she vanishes, taking Murphy’s last hope with her. 

“No,” he says, eyes wide, staring at the space she’d just taken up. “No, no - there’s no way.”

“Murphy,” Raven says behind him, softly, but he can barely hear her. 

“Come  _ back _ !” he cries, racing forwards and dropping to his knees just in front of the stream, so that his knees land on its bank. “Please, just - come back!” 

He knows he’s yelling, and he knows he’s acting irrationally but he can’t stop, not even as hot tears spring to the corner of his eyes. With an intense desperation he reaches both hands into the stream and searches wildly for the coin, just to get it back, just to  _ hold _ it again so that he’s got a chance. So that they  _ both _ have a chance, because without it he doesn’t have an alternative, and he’s got nowhere else to go. 

He’s got nowhere else to go. 

The thought hits him, hard, and then he thinks about Bellamy coming closer by the second, walking on foot through hazardous terrain just to end this all by force, and he starts to sob. The vulnerability and helplessness enrages him, engulfing him so intensely that both his hands catch fire even though they’re both still under the water, casting a bright orange glow to the free-flowing stream. 

Eventually, Raven will come over and put a hand on his shoulder and eventually, he’ll stand and walk back to the cottage, his sister on one side and Emori on the other, Clarke close behind. Eventually, he’ll light their fireplace for them and he’ll agree to spend the night, and in the morning he’ll accept their help to make a new plan forwards. Eventually, far after all of that, the tears will stop and his chest will feel whole again, but right now - 

Murphy has never felt quite so hopeless. 

* * *

He lies awake, far into the night, far after returning to the cottage after the devastating events with Gaia by the stream. It feels like every cell in his body is on fire but also exhausted, and though he’s completely still in the bed that was made for him, he feels like he can’t stop moving. 

It doesn’t feel fair. It doesn’t feel fair at all that somewhere, Bellamy is out there, walking towards him, while he gets to lie here safely in a comfortable bed. It doesn’t feel right that he’s the one who gets the easy job, when the only reason they’re in this predicament was because Bellamy was trying to save his life in the first place. 

Sometimes, during nights like these, he longs to go back to two thousand years ago, and he wishes he’d never walked into that field of flowers. He wishes he’d never reclined against that tree to soak up the sun, and that he’d never attracted the attention of the boy who only wanted to share some of his light with him. 

He wishes he could change it all, none of it for his own benefit, but then he selfishly thinks of Bellamy’s smile and he knows that, even if he were given that choice, he’d never have the strength to give it up. 

“I know you’re awake.”

Clarke’s sudden words startle him slightly. “That I am,” he says. 

The room they share is small, only large enough to fit the two single beds, one on each side. They’re close enough that he can hear her laugh. “I expected nothing else from you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing. Just that you’re the quiet wallowing type.”

“I am  _ not _ !”

“Is that not what you’re doing right now? Lamenting everything that’s gone wrong for you, without actually talking to anyone about it?”

He pauses, staring up at the ceiling through the dark. “Maybe.”

“See? I knew it.”

“Why are  _ you _ awake?”

She pauses, and though he can’t see her, somehow he knows that she’s staring up at the ceiling, too. “Because I’m also the quiet wallowing type.”

Murphy hums, the silence settling on them for a moment before he speaks. “If you want,” he says, “you can tell me what you’re thinking about. If you want to get it off your chest.”

“How sweet.”

“Shut up, I’m trying to be nice.”

She laughs quietly, and then sighs. “You already figured out that I was banished from Olympus - from my home.”

He hesitates before asking, “Why?”

“If you didn’t know,” she says, “I’m the goddess of diplomacy.”

“I’m not surprised,” he replies, and he isn’t. From the way she’d seemed to have a friendly relationship with everyone that he’d seen her interact with, to the way she’d been able to match him in sarcasm and spite, her domain fits her so well that he’s almost upset with himself for not guessing it sooner. 

She chuckles. “Yeah, that’s what most people say.”

“So, what happened?”

“Zeus was trying to start the next World War,” she replies, speaking softly despite the impact of her words. “I don’t know why exactly - I think he thought it would be fun for him to watch. He started a conflict, adding to the civil war in Yemen, and then-”

“Let me guess,” he says, “you stopped it.”

She sighs. “I did. I made both sides de-escalate tensions and then had them talk it out until they formed a peace treaty. I stopped the war.”

“Zeus wasn’t too happy with that, was he?”

“He was not,” she says. “Like all gods, I’m not allowed to use my powers to such an impact unless he gives direct permission, and, well...I didn’t exactly ask him first.”

Murphy knows he should be angry, but all he feels in his chest is a deep sense of melancholy and emptiness. Knowing that the leader of the gods would rather see his subjects go to war than ease their pain makes him wonder if he should have lost hope a long, long time ago. “For the record,” he says, though he knows nothing he says will ease her pain, “you did the right thing. Who knows how many lives you saved?”

“Thanks, Murphy,” she says. “I try to think about it that way, but...he took my home from me, you know?”

“Do you know where you’re going to go next?”

“I do.”

“Where?”

She sighs. “I like you, Murphy - I really do. But I think that should stay as a secret.”

He can’t exactly fight her on this, not when he’s keeping his own from her. “Fair enough,” he says. 

“Do you know where  _ you’re  _ going to go next?”

The memory of earlier that day, of Gaia vanishing without telling him where to go and taking his last coin with her, plays back in his mind and he has to fight the urge to start crying again. “I definitely do not.”

“I get that you don’t want to say,” Clarke says, “but if you tell me what it is you need to break the curse, I can try to help. I know people.”

He bites his lip, hesitating. He hadn’t expected to, but he likes her, too - but this means that he’s even less enthused about the possibility of her in danger. “If Nyx, or any of the high-ranking gods, found out what I was doing, the chance of success would be literally zero,” he says. “I’m sorry. I really can’t say.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, “but - if you ever need help, don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll do my best.”

“Thanks, Clarke.”

“And I won’t make you get bitten by a snake to do it.”

He smiles, and though he can’t see through the darkness in the room, he’s pretty confident that she’s smiling, too. “You’d think she’d have chosen a nicer animal, right?”

“Literally  _ anything  _ else would be nicer.”

They both laugh, and Murphy pulls the blanket up closer to his shoulders, soaking in the warmth. He thinks of Bellamy, cold and alone in the night, and though his chest hurts he knows that it isn’t over yet. His heart is still beating, and he’s still drawing breath into his lungs, and that means that, however small, there’s a chance. 

_ I’m going to save you,  _ he thinks, and he hopes that somehow, somewhere, Bellamy can hear him.  _ I’m going to repay you for what you did for me.  _

Eventually, sleep finds him, and though there is a lit fire running through his veins, for the first time in a very long time, it does not burn. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so kindly to everybody who commented on the last chapter and who have given this story hype!!! i'm a little overwhelmed by all the positivity so thank you all so much :) i hope you like this update. as per usual with me, there is no update schedule, but i'm hoping to get them out as quickly as possible. 
> 
> come find me on twitter @reidsnora! thanks again <3


	3. three.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I woke up in the morning and I didn't want anything,   
> didn't do anything,   
> couldn't do it anyways,   
> just lay there listening to the blood rush through me   
> and it never made sense, anything."

**Then-;**

From that point on, every time Murphy found himself in that part of the woods, he made a point to go and visit Bellamy’s village. He stayed on the outskirts, watching the people go by on their daily activities until eventually Bellamy would see him and race over to grab his hand and pull him in. Together, they walked through the cobblestone pathways, and sometimes he even accompanied Bellamy on one of his hunts. The moniker turned out to be true - the man never missed. 

Unless his fingers were wrapped around the edges of the bow, he made a point to always hold Murphy’s hand as they walked. Though it got a bit ridiculous at times, Murphy never once complained, nor did he want it any other way. 

It was about six months after their initial meeting when, one a quiet and peaceful evening, Murphy once again entered the field of calla lily flowers. It was late, and there was no doubt that Bellamy had gone home for the night already, but he knew the path to his village like he knew the back of his hand, now, and before he could really think it through his feet were walking it. Above him, the sun had just started to sink below the clouds, casting a bright orange hue across the world. 

He didn’t like the gods, by any means, but sometimes they did make beautiful things. As he walked, Murphy wondered who the god of sunsets was, or if there even was one. If there was, he thought, he’d like to meet them one day and thank them, for always making sure at least one piece of beauty was bestowed upon the earth each and every day. 

The trees began to thin and Murphy came closer and closer to the village, eyes narrowing as he did so. He had been expecting everyone to be in their homes and for the whole area to be peaceful and at ease, save for the fire burning beneath his skin, but when he listened past the breeze and sounds of the forest he could hear people talking and yelling. Music played below their voices and as he got closer to where he knew Bellamy’s home was, the sounds only grew louder. 

A thought struck him, then, as he approached. Bellamy’s village was largely unguarded, and though it was removed from the cities and most of the affairs of the mortal world, it still could be easily attacked. Murphy picked up the pace, curling his fingers into a fist and feeling the familiar warmth envelop them as a bright orange flame burst into existence, glowing brighter than the tones of the sunset. 

He ran, then, worry creeping inside his chest as he made it closer still. The treeline was visible to him as he heard someone laughing, loudly, causing anxiety to grow in his head. What if raiders had plundered the village? What if they had taken the villagers hostage or killed them all, and were now laughing about it, celebrating their victory? Most importantly - what if he could have helped stop them, but he arrived just a little too late?

Murphy burst into the clearing, fire at the ready, except - 

All around the clearing, people laughed and danced and drank, each and every person wearing a smile. Cheerful music could be heard in the background, as near the edge of the village, several people with instruments played loudly and happily. Food and drink adorned countless tables, set up all around the village, and fancy lanterns were strung up on every possible surface, casting a beautiful luminescence on the celebration at large. 

Slowly, Murphy lowered his fist, the fire that had come to life around it quietly extinguishing. He didn’t know what day of the week it was, and he had never been very good about keeping an eye on the mortal calendar, but surely this was unusual. Surely a party at sunset was not a normal thing. Regardless, he wasn’t sure what to do with himself now that he had just unintentionally crashed their celebration, and he was about to turn around and sneak back into the forest when someone called out to him. 

“Murphy!”

He turned towards the source of the voice, getting ready to explain why a demigod was standing at the gates of a mortal party, when he saw Bellamy race towards him. He, too, had a drink in his hand and a smile on his face. “Hi,” Murphy said as he approached. 

“You came!” Bellamy said, coming to a stop right in front of him. 

“Um - I didn’t know this was happening. I actually still don’t know what’s happening.”

Bellamy’s jaw dropped in mock indignation. “It’s Anthesteria today!”

Murphy had heard of the celebration of wine, of course, but he didn’t know that it was today. To his best understanding, it was in honour of the god Dionysus, the literal god of wine, and it also commemorated the winter turning to spring. “Right,” he said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Not so fast.” Quickly, a hand grabbed his own, and though Murphy still could have pulled away and made his escape, when his fingers were locked in Bellamy’s grip he didn’t want to. 

“Are you sure?” he asked. “I don’t want to intrude.”

Bellamy just grinned. “It’s a celebration of wine,” he said. “I can’t let you leave until you’ve at least had some. You don’t want to be rude, do you?”

“Ah - yeah, about that. It doesn’t work for me.”

“What doesn’t work?”

“Wine,” he said. “I don’t, um,  _ feel  _ it.”

Bellamy’s eyes widened, shaking his head, mystified. “Really?”

Murphy shrugged. “Just a perk of being half-god, I guess.”

He nodded, then glanced at the cup of the red liquid in his own hand. “Huh,” he said. “Well - if you can’t partake, then I won’t, either.” With a flourish, he tossed the cup onto the ground, the wine that had been inside coating the cobblestone, the cup itself rolling away from them. 

Murphy blinked, staring at the cup as it rolled. “Isn’t that considered rude?” he asked, “You know, to the gods upstairs?”

“What, Dionysus?” Bellamy laughed. “He’s the god of parties, too, is he not? I think he’ll be kind enough to let the rules slide.”

He’d never met Dionysus, but he couldn’t argue with that. “Okay,” he said, “but you should at least be having fun, right? Isn’t that the whole point of wine, to let people have fun? Don’t let me stop you from doing that.”

Bellamy stared at him, for a second, tightening his grip on his hand. “Murphy,” he said, “Just once, just for tonight, stop  _ thinking  _ so hard.”

“I - what?”

“Do you trust me?”

“Bellamy-”

He held up his free hand, silencing him. “Do you trust me?” he repeated. 

The sun was now falling completely below the horizon, illuminating Bellamy’s silhouette with a brilliant red shine. In the background, the music picked up the pace, matching Murphy’s own heartbeat. A feeling mostly unfamiliar to him started to take hold in his chest, and it took him several seconds to realize that it was euphoria and complete and utter certainty. “Yes,” he said. 

Bellamy smiled, far more dazzling than the sunset could ever hope to be. “Perfect,” he said. “Then dance with me.”

“Wait, what?” Murphy started to protest, but then Bellamy was turning away and running towards the village center, pulling Murphy with him. He stumbled initially as he followed, but then laughed at the spontaneity of it and allowed himself to be led into the fray. 

Bellamy weaved through the crowd with ease, though Murphy had considerable more trouble, brushing by shoulders and bumping into several people as he tried to keep up. “Sorry!” he called out, several times, but he kept laughing as they ran. He didn’t realize at first, but the whole time, he was smiling brighter than he ever had in his life. 

They stopped, then, once they got to the center of the party. Bellamy turned to him, giving him a half-bow, though he kept careful hold of his hand. “I don’t have a flower to offer you this time,” he said. 

“You could always fire an arrow at my head.”

“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”

“As far as first moves go, it was definitely memorable. Besides,” he said, “I still have your flower, so no need for another one.” From his jacket pocket, he pulled out a small piece of cloth, loosely wrapped around the white calla lily. He’d done his best to preserve it, but he didn’t know of any nature deities. Even Raven was at a loss for a long-term solution. 

Bellamy’s eyes softened as he looked at the flower, the sentiment washing over him. “In that case,” he said, “I hope you accept this dance, as yet another token of my affections.”

“There is no world in which I would say no to that,” Murphy said, and as the music began to swell, Bellamy pulled him close and they danced well and long through the night. Not once, Murphy realized, did either of them stop smiling, even for a second. 

As the festival died down, he let an exhausted Bellamy lead him back to his home, and he let him pull him into bed with him, the two of them lying side-by-side, Bellamy’s arm wrapped securely around his waist. Murphy lay awake for a long while as Bellamy slept beside him, still feeling the buzz from the party, and from dancing, and most of all, from having simple, mindless  _ fun.  _

This, he thought - he could get used to this. 

* * *

Bellamy was gone when he awoke the next morning, sun streaming through the windows into the home. He wasn’t sure what he was meant to do, as he sat up and swung his legs over the bed, staring out and at the sun. Normally, he’d leave and return to his wanderings before eventually working up the nerve to come and visit again, but after what happened he didn’t want to leave without at least saying goodbye and thanking Bellamy for what he had done for him. 

The music had long since gone, but as he sat in complete peace on the bed, he could still hear the faint notes and he smiled, the fire beneath his skin finally at ease. 

“You’re awake,” someone said, and he turned to see Bellamy in the doorway, leaning against the frame. “I hope I didn’t wake you when I left - I tried to be quiet.”

“You didn’t,” Murphy replied. “Before I go, I just wanted to-”

“Wait,” Bellamy said, suddenly. Only now did Murphy realize that, unlike every other time he’d seen him, Bellamy was nervous. Slowly, and with a bit of hesitation, he walked over to the bed and gently sat down, so that they were once again side by side. “I wanted to give you something.”

Murphy’s eyes widened. “You really don’t have to do anything like that.”

“No, I know, but I want to.” With a deep breath, Bellamy reached into the pocket of his jacket, revealing a small rectangular glass case. “I thought - since you like to keep it with you, I thought you could put the calla lily in here. It’ll preserve it better. At least, that’s what the merchant who sold it told me.”

His breath hitched as he looked up into Bellamy’s gaze, eyes widening. “You - Bell, you didn’t have to do this, not for me.”

Bellamy only smiled, his own eyes full of nothing but love. “No,” he said, “I wanted to do it,  _ because  _ it’s for you.”

Murphy’s hand trembled as he reached out, slowly taking hold of the smooth glass. He found the flower next, unwrapping it from the cloth and delicately placing it inside, shutting the case and smiling as he looked at it. Tears threatened to spill from his eyes, not because of the beauty, but because nobody had ever done something so meaningful, not for him. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I don’t know how to properly repay you.”

Next to him, Bellamy shifted, and he realized that his hands were shaking, too. “Stay,” he said. “Would you stay here, with me?”

He blinked, and his time, a single tear did fall. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Murphy’s hand reached out, grabbing hold of Bellamy’s tightly. “Of course I will,” he whispered, his breath quickening as the magnitude of the moment and the sentiment finally started to reach him. 

Bellamy stared at him for a second longer, eyes shining as he looked at the fire burning in Murphy’s soul and chose to love him anyways, not despite of it, but because of it. In one quick movement he raised his other hand, wrapping it around the back of his neck and pulling him closer, lips meeting in a gentle kiss. 

“Thank you,” he whispered, after they broke away, and then he kissed him again, and again, and again, and he felt the fire in his blood burn not from anger, but from an abundance of peace. 

**Now-;**

“Lay it all out for us,” Raven says, easing herself down to sit on the floor across from him and next to Emori, who slides to be slightly closer to her so that their shoulders brush. “Tell us everything you know so far.”

It’s late in the evening, a day after Murphy’s failed attempts at getting answers from Gaia. The two of them had agreed to help him plan his next move, and so he’d taken the belongings from his bag and placed them spread out on the floor so that they could see. They’re genuine about their offer to help him, but still, he hesitates. 

His gaze flickers to the closed door to the spare room, where Clarke had already retired for the night. “Are you sure she can’t hear us?”

Emori sighs. “Yes, Murphy. And even if she could, she’s not the type to eavesdrop.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Here’s a thought,” Raven says, “you could just invite her out here, and tell her what’s going on. She could lend her insight, too.”

He shakes his head. “Too risky.”

“Right, I forgot you don’t like to trust people.”

“I trust the two of you, don’t I?” He doesn’t dispute Raven’s words, but they’re not quite true. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Clarke. In fact, if he could choose, he’d probably let her come out to the main room and weigh in with her own expertise, but the fact that Bellamy’s safety and the possibility of a life for them both after all this depends on his ability to keep his quest a secret makes the decision for him. He can’t chance it, as much as he’d like to. 

Raven shrugs. “Fine. So - tell us everything, so we’re all on the same page.”

He’s about to speak, but then he hesitates once again. “Are you sure that  _ you _ want to know?” he asks the two of them. “It’s dangerous, just knowing about this.”

“We’re in this, Murphy,” Emori says. “We know. We understand the risk, and we want to do what we can to help you.”

“Yeah, so get on with it,” Raven adds. 

Murphy takes a breath, nodding. “Okay,” he says. “So - as you know, Nyx is the goddess that cursed me and Bellamy two thousand years ago, because we broke her quest cycle.”

“Wait,” Emori says, “ _ you _ broke the quest cycle? I knew that it had happened a long time ago, but I had never heard the story.”

“Not my finest moment,” Murphy admits, “but yes, we were responsible.” Along with being the goddess of chaos, Nyx used to be responsible for creating oracles, who would assign quests to demigods throughout their lifetime. When they were around, as soon as a demigod either completed their quest or died doing it, the next quest would be assigned, thus creating the cycle. 

“I think it was pretty cool,” Raven says. 

He shrugs. “Because of us, there hasn’t been an oracle in two thousand years,” he says. “Let me just say - Nyx was not pleased about that, and I’m sure her anger is just as fresh today.”

“You took away one of her domains,” Emori reasons. “She’s wicked and vile, but - I can sympathize with how devastating that would feel.”

Murphy doesn’t reply to that comment, breezing through this part of the story so that he doesn’t have to tell them how it is that the quest cycle was broken, or about the moments that happened right after it. He’s safe here in the cottage, he knows, but if he starts thinking about the worst day of his life, he may just lose his mind. “Anyways,” he says, “So, Nyx cursed us. Obviously, I’m trying to break that curse.”

“Hecate’s book has a spell that breaks curses, right?” Raven asks. 

“That it does,” he replies. “For it to work, I needed some of the Golden Fleece, because of its healing properties.”

Emori nods. “I still admire your restraint for not taking the whole thing.”

_ Someone else might need to heal someone,  _ he thinks, but he doesn’t say it, instead choosing to move onwards. “The white flower is an ingredient for the spell too,” he says, doing his best to quell the emotion that threatens to break his voice when he looks at it in its glass case, the little red dot on one of the petals glaringly obvious. “The calla lily.”

Neither of them know the story behind the flower, either, but he’s thankful that they both don’t argue with him. “Okay,” Raven says, “so what other ingredients do you need?”

“Technically, none. I have everything I need to do the spell.”

Across from him, there’s silence for a beat. “Forgive me for asking,” Raven says, blinking in confusion, “but - what are you waiting for, then?”

He sighs. “I have all the physical ingredients I need,” he says, “but a spell like this...it requires magic. An awful lot of very, very powerful magic. More than you or I will ever come close to having.”

It’s true that demigods possessed at least a sliver of magic, given to them from their godly parentage, but it manifested in each of them in wild, unpredictable ways. For some, like Raven, it gifted immortality much like the gods themselves possessed - her magic is in her life force, quite literally, keeping her alive for all eternity. Besides a bad leg and a hefty amount of knowledge concerning engineering and mechanics, no other magic flows through her veins. Murphy, on the other hand, has more physical magic, giving him control over the element of fire - his own brand of immortality was given via the curse, not from his father. He knows he’s capable of performing spells because he’s got at least some magic, but as he’s only half-god, it wouldn’t be able to cast anything capable of breaking a curse given by one of the most powerful gods in existence. 

“You need an amplifier, don’t you?” Emori asks. “Some kind of powerful object with magic inside, that you can take for yourself and use to cast the spell?”

“Exactly,” Murphy says, “and the only one powerful enough is a golden apple from the garden of the Hesperides.” 

Both girls freeze, eyes going wide. “Wait,” Raven says, leaning forwards, “you can’t mean -  _ really?”  _

“Really.”

They’d both known he was searching for the entrance to somewhere heavily protected, but from the looks on their faces neither of them had guessed he’d been seeking out the most well-guarded secret location of all time. “The golden apples were blessed by the gods themselves,” Emori says, wistfully. “Supposedly, they’ve been in that garden since the dawn of time, hanging on their tree, completely unchanged despite the world around them growing.”

He nods. “So goes the stories, anyways. That means, though, that even just one apple would be loaded with magical energy, straight from the gods.”

Raven, though, is less than pleased. “The Hesperides are all daughters of Nyx,” she says, forcefully, “the very same goddess who cursed you in the first place, if you’ve forgotten.”

“I know.”

“Their  _ only _ job in the universe is to guard those apples and tend to the garden. You think they’re just going to let you take one?”

“Raven-”

“This whole time, you’ve been so secretive to make sure that Nyx doesn’t catch onto your plan, and now you’re just going to walk right onto her home turf?”

He waits until she’s done before speaking again. “I  _ know _ , Raven, but I don’t have a choice. I have to try. Believe me, I’ve thought of all the other potential magical objects out there, and only a golden apple could give me the power boost I would need.”

Her expression is pained as she stares at him, obviously not agreeing with his plan, but she always knows she can’t change his mind. “Can you even handle that amount of magic?” she asks. “Wouldn’t that much raw power kill you?”

“It might,” he agrees, “but it might not.”

“Let me help,” Emori says. “Whenever it is that you get the apple - because you  _ will _ get it - summon me, and I’ll come help. I’ll offer my magic, too, and I can help carry some of the extra energy.”

It’s nice, he thinks, to have a goddess on his side. “Okay,” he says. “I will. Thank you.”

Raven smiles at Emori, their shoulders brushing again as she looks back at him and sighs. “Fine. So you get the apple, summon Emori, break the curse.”

“Not quite,” he replies. “Hecate’s spell says it must be done with the waters of Ogygia.”

“It never ends, does it?” she sighs. 

“Ogygia...isn’t that the island of the lost?” Emori asks. “It’s just in the middle of the ocean, isn’t it?”

He nods. “It is. I’m not too worried - surely it’ll be easier to find than this garden is proving to be.”

“Fine,” Raven tries again, “so let me get this straight - you somehow find your way to the garden of the Hesperides, you steal one of their apples without Nyx, their  _ mother,  _ finding out, you find your way to an island that you’ve never visited, you summon Emori, and then you break the curse.”

Murphy gives her a tight smile. “Exactly.”

“No wonder this has taken you so long,” she grumbles, but then straightens out and pulls her long ponytail tighter. “Alright - where is the garden?”

“Nobody knows except for Nyx and Gaia,” he says, “and I can’t exactly ask either of them.”

“Well, where have you already looked?” she asks. “We could start narrowing it down, place by place. Sure, it would take a long time, but you must have already tried most of the map.”

“That’s the thing,” he says, his eyes turning to his lap, “there isn’t just one location. The garden moves each and every day to a completely random spot, and wherever the entrance is, you can only get there during the last rays of sunset, or the start of sunrise.”

She pauses, then leans back again, pinching the bridge of her nose as she falls deep in thought. Raven’s attempting to find a scientific approach to answer this problem, he knows, but there isn’t a methodical way to go about this. “It’s literally hit or miss,” she finally says, “no matter where you go.”

“It’s just chance,” he agrees. “So...I don’t know where I’ll try next. I was following Gaia’s clues, but they all turned out to be dead ends.”

They’re silent for a moment longer, before Emori speaks up. “What if we all look?”

Raven looks over at her, puzzled, as does Murphy. “I can’t ask you to do that,” he says. “Believe me, it’s no fun at all.”

“I don’t know,” she continues, “it sounds like it could be a vacation to me. Don’t get me wrong - Raven and I would stay together, but if we look at the same time as you, that’s twice the ground.” She looks at Raven, then, silently asking what she thought of the idea. 

Slowly, a grin spreads over Raven’s face. “I  _ have _ been wanting a vacation,” she agrees, “and time spent with you all over the world, well...I can’t think of anything better.”

A dull warmth spreads in Murphy’s chest, for them and their happiness but also in response to what they’re willing to do for him. “That means a lot to me,” he says, softly. “Thank you both, I - I don’t know what to say.”

“For Bellamy, right?” Raven says. “He deserves to have people fighting for him.”

“For Bellamy,” he agrees. 

They sit together in silence, for a moment, before Emori suddenly stands. “Right,” she says, “Now that that’s settled, it’s time for some fun, don’t you think?”

Murphy looks up at her, confusion evident on his face. “What do you mean?”

She walks over to the closed door of the guest room, turning to face them both as she fixes them with a stare. “Clarke!” she yells, banging three times on the door, “Get out here! We’re having fun.”

A moment passes, and then the door slowly creaks open and Clarke steps out. “Um, hi,” she says, slowly and cautiously, looking somewhat spooked as though she’s afraid she’s going to get yelled at just for being there. Murphy supposes that, should she have walked out before they were done discussing, she would have been. 

“My girlfriend has decided we’re going to have  _ fun _ ,” Raven says, still seated on the floor. Despite what she says, she looks up at Emori with the brightest smile, her eyes full of love. 

Emori hums, then comes back over, holding out a hand for her. “You know,” she says, “I’m getting kind of tired of hearing you say that.”

Raven looks genuinely confused, though she accepts the hand and the offer of support as she stands. “Of hearing me say what?”

“Girlfriend.”

There’s a pause. Murphy watches carefully from his position on the floor, quickly putting all his belongings back into his bag. “But that’s what you are,” Raven says, slowly. 

Emori smiles, then pulls her closer, so that they’re standing only inches apart. “It’s been so many years with you,” she says, softly. “I’ve lost track, but they’ve been the best years of my life, Raven. You’re more than just my girlfriend.”

“Emori...I don’t know what to say.”

She smiles in response, taking both her hands and standing so close that their foreheads nearly touch. Murphy busies himself with the drawstring on his bag, while Clarke studies her nails, both of them sure they’re intruding on a private moment. 

“Raven Reyes,” Emori says, “I want to call you my wife.”

Raven’s breath audibly hitches. “Marriage is for the mortals,” she says, “but I would like nothing more than to marry you.”

Emori leans forwards, capturing her in a kiss. Murphy catches Clarke smiling as she leans against the wall before she looks down, a million miles away, clearing thinking of something - or some _ one _ \- else. Last night, she’d told him that she had a place in mind as to where she’d go next, and he wonders if the person on her mind is connected to that. 

After a few moments, the newlyweds break apart, Emori raising her voice to address everyone in the room. “I just got  _ married _ !” she cries. “And you’re all celebrating with me.”

Murphy stands, grinning. “Isn’t there usually a bit more involved in marrying someone?” he says. “I’m pretty sure you can’t just decide it.”

Emori drops her jaw, staring at him in faux shock. “You dare say that to me,” she says, “at  _ my _ wedding!”

He raises his hands, surrendering. “Fine,” he says, and then to both of them, “congratulations. It was a very, very,  _ very _ long time coming.”

“Ha, ha,” Raven says, but she grins and holds out her arms for an embrace that he quickly accepts. 

“Seriously,” he says to her, holding her tightly, “I’m happy for you, Raven.”

“Thank you,” she replies, and then, “Don’t worry, Murphy. You’re going to have this one day with him. I know you will.” He stiffens, slightly, and all he can do is nod his thanks. 

As they break apart, he sees that Emori’s pulled out both an old radio from a cupboard and a six-pack of beer. “Really?” he says. “You know that does nothing for literally everybody here.”

“Mortal wedding calls for a mortal party,” she replies, fiddling with the knobs on the radio until Raven rolls her eyes and goes over to her to fix it herself. 

“Absolutely none of this is mortal,” he mutters, but he still catches the cold can of beer when she throws it to him across the room. 

Clarke catches the can tossed her way as well, and then gives him a shrug as Raven works on fixing the radio. “Hey, can’t hurt, right?” she says. 

He chuckles, opening the can and then cringing slightly at the taste. “Actually, it can.”

She goes to open her own drink, but thinks better of it when she sees his reaction. “A celebration is still a celebration,” she says. “I’m leaving tomorrow, after all, so - it feels right.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. I had to make sure I wasn’t being followed and that Zeus wasn’t watching me.”

Murphy nods. “Yeah, you mentioned you wanted to keep that a secret, to protect that place.”

She bites her lip, thinking, and then says, “More so that I wanted to protect the person in that place.”

He smiles. “This might be their party,” he says, gesturing over to Raven and Emori, “but I’m happy for you, too.”

“Thank you,” she says. “I gathered from your super secret strategy session that you’re leaving soon, too, so - good luck, Murphy. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“Thanks, Clarke,” he replies. “I’m sorry I was such a dick before. For what it’s worth, it’s been a pleasure.”

She raises her still closed can in mock cheers, which he meets, but neither of them are brave enough to actually take a drink. They’re saved from the awkwardness of this when the radio crackles to life, filling the room with static before it somehow tunes into a station, despite the cottage being on the side of a mountain. A cheerful song starts to play, one that Murphy immediately recognizes from the opening notes. 

_ I get knocked down,  _ the singer says,  _ but I get up again  _ \- and just like that, he’s back at the American bar in the middle of nowhere, and Bellamy’s there and they’re running through the woods, and though there’s worry in his chest and fear in his heart he’s okay. He’s alright. He’s going to be fine, because Bellamy’s alive and so is he, and if that’s still the case, then there’s hope, no matter how many golden coins he does or doesn’t have. One day, the curse will be broken, and all of this will mean something. One day, they’ll have made it. 

“We’re going to make it,” he says, only realizing he’s said it aloud when the other three in the room stare at him. 

“Make it?” Raven repeats. 

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s going to work out. We’re going to make it, all of us. I know it.”

The song continues to play in the background as Raven shrugs, then raises her can in the air. “I’ll drink to that,” she says, taking a sip, and then immediately putting the drink down, her distaste to it obvious. “Babe, this is horrible,” she says to Emori. 

“The mortals like it,” Emori replies, studying the can as if that will tell her why it tastes the way it does. 

“Oh, who cares,” Clarke says with a laugh. “You just got married! This is a celebration, is it not?” Just as she finishes speaking, the chorus of the song hits, filling the room with the music. She bounds over to Raven and Emori and pulls them into the center of the room, grabbing Murphy’s arm afterwards and forcing him to join them, too. 

The music swells, and they dance, laughter all around them. They can’t see the darkening sky outside, and there are no fancy lanterns or tables adorned with food, but it is simple, and it is peaceful, and most importantly, the moment is theirs and theirs alone. 

He doesn’t know what he did to earn the right to call these three his friends, but - after everything, Murphy figures he’s owed just a little bit of luck. 

They dance and cheer and celebrate into the night and until the early hours of the morning, when they finally all find their way to their respective beds. Murphy’s asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, a soft smile on his face as the feeling of safety stays with him.

* * *

At first, he sleeps easy. 

At first, he stays in a dreamless rest for as long as he can, soaking up every second before he has to awaken and begin his search once again. The feelings of peace and safety from the night before still sit in his soul and he feels calm, and at ease, until - 

A sudden wave of anxiety washes over him and his eyes fly open. Quickly, he sits up. Clarke’s still asleep, and the sun isn’t that high up in the sky, but there’s a dull pain in his chest, reminiscent of one he felt two thousand years ago and hasn’t felt a comparable one since. 

The room is empty, but there’s a voice in his head screaming at him.  _ You’re not alone,  _ it yells, and though he stays sitting he shuts his eyes, forcefully, willing it to shut up.  _ You’re not alone. You’re in danger. You’re going to die here. You are doing to DIE -  _

He opens his eyes, and suddenly, she’s standing by the foot of his bed. The horrible, haunting pieces all fit together, and everything makes a terrible amount of sense. 

“Nyx,” he whispers, unable to draw his eyes away from her. He knows now why he’s feeling the fear and anxiety - being in the same room as the goddess of chaos will do that to a person - but he still can’t calm down. He’s unable to tear his eyes away from her, and though he wants nothing more than to run her through with the nearest knife he can find, he stays perfectly still. 

“Jonathan Murphy,” she says, humming a lilting note after she says her name. She holds a thin, bony finger to her chin, tapping it absentmindedly. “Oh, how long it’s been.”

“Not long enough,” he says, and though he tries to put some confidence or bravado in his voice, he can’t seem to speak higher than a whisper. Nyx looks just the same as she had two thousand years ago. Her skin is ghastly pale and ghostlike, contrasting to her deep black hair that sweeps past her shoulders. She wears only dark colours, and all around her dark purple and black tendrils of smoke rise and fall through the air. As she stands, she flickers slightly, so much so that if he were to look hard enough, he’d be able to stare straight through her. 

She turns her head to the side, looking him up and down. Pure terror strikes at his heart as she sizes him up, twisting through him like a knife. He swallows, doing his best to stay composed, but sweat is beading at his brow and he’s holding the edge of the bed so tightly his fingernails have turned white. “You’re trying to break my curse,” she finally says. 

His breath hitches, but before he answers, he glances over at Clarke. Somehow, despite the energy in the room and the godly presence in front of them, she’s fast asleep. “What did you do to her?”

“Always assuming the worst,” she says with a sigh. “You’re not really here, darling. I’m in your dreams, in your head...and I’m always in your mind. Did you really think someone as high profile as me has the time to make house calls?”

He takes a breath, as deeply as he can, though he feels as though he’s been swimming through cement and only now is he starting to drown. “What do you want, Nyx?” he whispers. 

“You’re trying to break my curse.”

“How-”

“A goddess knows these things,” she replies, though she seems completely and utterly bored with him. “Now - here’s the thing. I let you live and toil around on this planet for as long as you have as your punishment, but now...now you’re starting to annoy me again.”

He isn’t sure what to say to that. Even if he could think of anything, he isn’t sure he’d be able to actually verbalize them, not with fear curling around his heart, holding him tighter by the second.  _ You’re going to die here,  _ the voice in his head whispers, and he thinks it sounds a little bit like the goddess in front of him. “Oh,” is all he manages, after an embarrassingly long time. 

“Not that you would,” she continues, “but I can’t have you actually breaking my curse. Do you know how that would look? A demigod, beating  _ me _ ? I don’t think so. Besides - it was always Bellamy that I had more of an issue with. If I kill you, I get to watch him roam the earth aimlessly, alone, for several years to come.”

“Please,” he chokes out, but she doesn’t pay him any mind. 

“So you see, it’s a win-win for me,” she says. “Thank you for all your entertainment these past years, blah blah. Sorry that it didn’t work out for you.” Somehow, she seems the slightest bit sincere, but he doesn’t get the chance to ask. 

Wordlessly, Nyx vanishes.  _ You’re going to die!  _ the voice screams, the world tilts, and - 

He wakes with a  _ scream _ . It tears out of his throat and he flies upright, falling out of the bed with a heavy  _ thump.  _ The sheets tangle amidst his limbs but he can’t stop moving, or take a breath, not with the panic still heavy in his chest and the knowledge of what had just happened clear in his mind. 

“Murphy!” Clarke cries, having woken as well. “What’s wrong?”

But - he can’t stop, or tell her, or do anything but stand on shaking legs and crash through the door and out into the main room of the cottage. He slams on the door to Emori and Raven’s room as he passes, then starts grabbing his jacket and boots, throwing them on with only half a mind as to what he’s doing. 

“What’s going on?” Emori asks, her and Raven having come into the main room. 

“I have to go,” Murphy says, pulling on his other boot. His breath is coming quick and fast, his heart beating far too quickly. “I have to go  _ now. _ ”

“Slow down,” Raven says, “and tell us what happened.”

“No time,” he snaps, crossing the cottage room in a second and snatching up his bag of belongings, throwing it over his shoulder. He’s about to walk through the door and down the mountain and never look back, when another thought occurs to him. “You have to go, too. All of you. Now.”

Emori looks at Clarke, silently asking for an explanation, but the latter only shrugs in her own confusion. “We’re not going anywhere,” Raven says, “not until you tell us what is going on.”

His shoulders feel heavy and he’s leaning, against the edge of the rocking chair, holding onto it tightly. He’s trying to slow his breathing, and dissuade the oncoming panic attack, but the dream replays over and over in his head and the voice refuses to silence itself. “You’re in danger. We’re all in danger.”

Raven’s at his side, then, putting a gentle hand on his arm. “We can’t help if we don’t know what’s going on.”

Murphy breathes, the best he can, and sharply nods. “I had a dream,” he says. “And I know - I know what’s going to happen if we stay here.”

“What’s going to happen?”

He loses what control he had, and he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, only opening them to look out the lone window and into the light of the morning. Outside, the world seems serene and still, but he knows any second now that will all change. Any second now, Nyx will be true to her word and he will be responsible for all of their lives - and the end of them. Once again, his heart rate quickens and echoes in his ears and though Raven’s hand grounds him, slightly, he also knows that slowing down could cost all of them everything. 

“Murphy?” Raven repeats. “What’s going to happen if we stay here?”

He looks up at her, a deep certainty in his head. “We’re all going to die,” he whispers, and the voice inside his head starts to laugh. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the exposition heavy chapter! tried to space it out with some fun/fluff moments. i had to make sure all the characters were on the same page, as well as the audience being on the same page, so i hope it wasn't too drab or boring to get through. <3


	4. four.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You just wanted to prove there was one safe place.  
> Just one safe place where you could love him.  
> You have not found that place yet."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **warnings for this chapter! they're all up in the tags, so please be advised**

**Then-;**

After the night of their first festival together, Murphy stayed in Bellamy’s village for two beautiful, blissful years. 

In the morning, he’d wake up with the sunrise and walk the village outskirts to take in its beauty, eventually returning back to prepare breakfast for Bellamy and Octavia. Then he’d help the rest of the villagers however he could, joining Bellamy in the afternoon for his near-daily hunts through the thick wood surrounding them. 

Every so often, Raven made sure to visit him. “I’m so happy for you,” she said, on one of these occasions. “What you’ve found here...most demigods, we don’t get this.”

He smiled, taking her hand. “Don’t worry,” he replied. “You’re going to have this one day with somebody, Raven. I know that you will.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, and he hoped that she knew he meant those words with everything that he had. If there was one person on the planet who deserved to meet the love of her life, it was his sister. 

When night would roll around and the sun would start to sink beneath the clouds, he’d retire to sleep with Bellamy at his side. They always made a point to hold each other close. After two years of this, Murphy couldn’t imagine spending a night any other way. A world in which he braved the harshness of the dark without Bellamy by his side was a world that he wanted no part of. 

For a very long time, everything was fine. Murphy was happy. He had a whole life planned out in his head, and he wanted nothing more than to spend the nights with his greatest love and grow old with him. He didn’t want anything to change, nor did he see even the slightest possibility that it would. 

For a long time, everything was fine, until a goddess showed up at his doorstep. 

It was early in the morning, on a clear day somewhere between summer and autumn when the soft knock on the door came. “Are you expecting company?” Murphy asked, standing from where he’d been seated at the table, having breakfast across from Bellamy. Octavia had left for a few weeks on a trip to visit her close friend Niylah, who lived in the city. 

“No,” Bellamy said, shaking his head. “I don’t know who that could be, not this early.”

Murphy shrugged, walking over to the door and opening it gently. “Good morning,” he said, but then his eyes landed on who was standing in front of him, and the pleasant smile that he had been wearing fell from his face. He stepped back instinctually, eyes widening and jaw dropping. A second passed, and then when his godly training kicked in he dropped into a low bow, one knee on the ground and his head dipped. “My lady Nyx,” he said. There was a small crash as Bellamy, behind them, leapt out of his chair and bowed as well. 

From where she stood in the doorway, Nyx hummed her indifference. “Thank you,” she said, “but there’s no need. Are you going to let me inside?”

“Of course,” Murphy said, immediately standing and stepping back, holding the door wide open for her. She seemed to float inside, her ghostly skin flickering even in the dim light of the room. Dark, smoky tendrils drifted up and around her silhouette, stemming from her very existence, and Murphy knew that if he were to touch one, it would burn. He’d never met the goddess of chaos before, but he knew of her reputation, and her power was so strong that even being in her presence was enough to awaken his anxiety. 

Bellamy stood as well, stepping back so that he was standing at the outskirts of the room. The goddess took no notice of him as she drifted into the center of the room, absentmindedly looking around. “Lovely home,” she said, her voice soft and gentle despite her striking appearance. 

“Thank you,” Murphy managed to say. He knew that it was in his best interests to stay perfectly cordial, but he also wanted her to leave as quickly as possible. “May I ask what we can do for you?”

She turned to him, fixing him with a look that made him feel very, very small. “You look like your father, you know.”

Murphy swallowed roughly. “Thank you,” he whispered. Thanking her was the correct response, he knew, and he also knew he should feel honoured to be compared to his godly father, but from his vantage point it was not a compliment. 

“Anyways,” she said, sighing, “I come to you with fantastic news, John Murphy. You are receiving a great honour today.”

As she spoke, he began to wonder with a growing sense of horror as to what she was doing there. “I am?” he said, but he had a creeping suspicion as to the truth, though he hoped with everything he had that he was wrong. 

“You,” she said, “as a child of Hephaestus, have been chosen by fate itself to be the bearer of the next godly quest.”

Looking back, much later, it was clear to him that this very moment was when it all started to go wrong for him. At the time, though, he could do nothing but stare at her in shock.

“What does that mean?” Bellamy asked, speaking for the first time since Nyx had entered their home. Murphy wanted to tell him to stay quiet and keep himself out of trouble, but he couldn’t seem to make his mouth work. 

Nyx, in typical godly fashion, ignored him. “Two days from now, when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky, you will make your way to the oracle. He will be in the Theopetra Caves, a short ways away from this very village. If you fail to show up to receive your quest, you will be killed for disobedience, and the next quest bearer will be chosen.”

Murphy took a deep, rattling breath, trying to calm his mind as the reality of what she was saying sunk in. Still, he knew he had to be careful as to what he said to her, lest she lose her temper and bring the whole village down - and Bellamy with it. “I wasn’t expecting this,” he finally managed to say. “Last I heard, Finn, son of Athena, was the quest bearer and his quest-”

“His quest was life-long, yes,” Nyx said, interrupting him, “but he died only a few days ago, very suddenly and requiring a new demigod to be chosen. How fortunate for you.”

“Right,” Murphy whispered. “How fortunate.”

“I don’t understand,” Bellamy said. Never had he sounded so desperate, and so human. “Why does Murphy have to go on a quest? What’s the point?”

Nyx narrowed her eyes, growing annoyed, but by a stroke of luck she didn’t act on her anger. “Mortals are ignorant as ever, I see,” she sighed. “I can see you care about this demigod - know that he is serving a greater purpose. A  _ higher  _ purpose. The quest cycle is built into the very fabric of this universe, a cycle created by Zeus himself. One demigod is chosen to complete a quest in honour of the gods, given to them divinely by the oracle. Once they complete this quest, or if they are killed during their attempt to do so, then the cycle begins again and the next demigod is chosen for the next quest.”

“But  _ why _ ?” Bellamy insisted, and Murphy shook his head, desperately, but to no avail. “It sounds to me like this is - this is just a control measure! Like the gods don’t want the demigods, their own  _ children,  _ to roam freely in the world, so they keep them in fear of the potential to be chosen to do some life-threatening task that doesn’t actually help anybody. This is  _ cruel _ !”

“Bellamy,” Murphy whispered. “It’s okay.”

“No,” he cried, “it’s not  _ okay!  _ They’re trying to kill you, Murphy. Do you not see that? They’re trying to kill all of you.”

_ You’re right,  _ Murphy wanted to say, but he held his tongue. The truth was that Bellamy was correct - the whole quest cycle was put in place by Zeus to reign in demigods and to keep them under a short leash, so that none of them got brave enough to try and defy him. He didn’t like the idea of powerful beings roaming the planet, but he also didn’t want to deal with them up on Olympus, and so the oracles and the quest cycle was born. Murphy knew, with absolute certainty, that the quest he would be sent on would be next to impossible, because they always were. He’d spend the rest of his life trying to complete it, or he’d die in the process and then the responsibility would be passed down to the next demigod, and so forth, and so forth. 

Bellamy was right, but Nyx was not in the mood to hear it - or even admit it herself. “You’re awfully brave for a mortal,” she said, her voice low. 

“He didn’t mean anything by it,” Murphy said, quickly. He still hadn’t processed the news, or what it meant for his life, but protecting Bellamy came naturally to him. “Please understand, my lady, he’s simply confused. He doesn’t understand the truth of it.”

“No,” Bellamy immediately said, ignoring the pleading look Murphy gave him. “No, I understand what’s going on here perfectly.”

Nyx ignored this, glancing over at Murphy before sighing. “I can perhaps sympathize that a mere mortal might be unable to grasp the truth of the matter,” she said, “and as my gift to you, as the new quest bearer, my punishment will be lenient.” 

His eyes widened as she waved a hand, the flick of her wrist so simple and quick that one might think she was batting away a fly. The effect, however, was instantaneous. Bellamy’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and he dropped to the floor like a bag of rocks, hard and fast, crashing into an unceremonious heap.  _ “No!”  _ Murphy cried, racing forwards. He didn’t care that there was a goddess in the room, or about any of what she had just said. His only thought was of Bellamy as he sank to the floor, heart racing and beating loudly in his ears, anxiety only quelling slightly as he saw that he was still breathing and very much alive. Carefully, he gathered Bellamy’s head in his lap and held tightly onto his shoulders, his hands shaking ever so slightly. 

“Calm down,” Nyx said, though she sounded bored. “He’s merely asleep. I was growing tired of hearing him speak, and I must say, the silence is quite preferable. How you put up with it all day, I have no idea.”

“He will wake, won’t he?” Murphy asked, his voice shaking. Though he stayed where he was on the floor and kept careful hold of Bellamy’s sleeping form, he brought his gaze up to meet Nyx’s cold eyes. 

She hummed. “Oh, yes, in an hour or so,” she said, “or perhaps, after much longer. Truly, I don’t remember - and I’m sure you know all too well how powerless mortals are against someone like me. Hopefully, this helps him learn his place. He’d be much better off for it.”

Murphy took a breath, using all his strength to not say what he so desperately wanted to. “Thank you for your visit, my lady,” he whispered. 

Nyx clicked her tongue, then nodded. “Remember, Murphy - Theopetra Caves, two days from now. The oracle will be waiting. If you fail to show up - well, I’m sure your sister would be ever so pleased to take your place.”

“I’ll be there.”

“What was her name? Raven, right?”

“I said,” he repeated, “I will be there.”

Nyx smiled, wickedly so, and then drifted back out the door and into the clearing of the village, leaving the door to their home open as she left. He watched her go, never moving away from Bellamy, and only when he was sure that she was gone did he start to sob. 

* * *

Twenty-two hours passed before Bellamy woke. 

At some point during the night, Murphy had carried his sleeping form into their room and set him down securely on the bed, underneath a blanket to keep him warm. He’d sat at the head of the bed himself, then, his back against the wall and Bellamy tightly in his arms, his head resting on Murphy’s chest. Not once did Murphy leave his side. Every so often, he paused his own breathing to check that Bellamy was still drawing in breath, and he’d put a hand over his chest to make sure his heart was still beating. 

The sun was just starting to come up the following morning, slowly illuminating the room in a golden hue. With Octavia gone, their home was completely and utterly still. Murphy stared out the small window on the opposite wall, watching as the sunlight basked them both in its glow. By all accounts, it should be a perfect morning. It would have been, except - 

Bellamy woke with a soft gasp, shuddering for a moment before Murphy tightened his grip, adjusting only slightly to take his hand. “Murphy?” Bellamy whispered. 

“It’s me.”

“Am I - what happened?”

“You’re safe. Don’t worry about it,” he replied, as softly as he could. 

Bellamy shifted in his grip, but he didn’t try to move out of it or escape. “Tell me it was a dream,” he said. “Please, tell me that it was all a dream.”

“I wish that I could,” he whispered. 

“Tell them no,” Bellamy said. “Tell them you can’t go. Tell them that you won’t.”

His breath trembled as he repeated, “I wish that I could.” Though the warmth from the rising sun made him think the moment should be akin to a dream, it felt closer to a nightmare. 

**Now-;**

“You don’t understand!” Murphy cries, gesturing wildly at the room, trying his absolute best to get his friends to listen to his warnings. “Nyx visited me in my dream, telling me that she was on her way to kill us, and she’s not exactly the type to lie about that!”

Clarke’s eyes narrow, but Raven and Emori only share a glance. Despite his best efforts, none of them have joined him in his attempt to leave as quickly as possible. “Are you sure,” Raven asks, “that Nyx was  _ actually _ there?”

“Yeah, what if it was really just a dream?” Emori adds. 

He breathes out, slowly, rubbing his temples. “For the thousandth time,” he says, “ _ yes _ , I’m sure.”

“It just doesn’t seem like Nyx to bother with this,” Raven says. “Does she really think you’re that much of a threat to her? I didn’t think she was threatened by anyone.”

Clarke nods, slowly. “It does feel weird that she’d visit you personally. I would have thought she’d think it beneath her to bother with the affairs of people she cursed thousands of years ago.”

“I’m sure we all would prefer that,” Murphy says, “but I’m just telling you what she told me! I don’t think she wants people to know that her curses are even possible to break.”

“Well, that’s just-”

“Look, it doesn’t matter!” he cries, harshly cutting Raven off. “Nyx clearly knows where we are, so this safehouse is compromised. I don’t know if she’s coming after just me, or all of us, but either way, staying here is  _ literally _ the most dangerous thing we could do.”

Raven bites her lip, studying his face, and then she finally nods. “Okay. Fine. Let’s pack up what we need and get a move on.”

The tension falls out of his shoulders as he sighs gratefully. “Thank you.”

“An early start to our vacation,” Emori reminds her wife, squeezing her hand before moving into the side room to collect the essentials. 

Clarke nods, throwing on her own jacket as she begins to move quickly as well. “Sorry that our parting here is so sudden,” she says, “but if Nyx really is on the warpath, I have to go make sure that my girlfriend is safe.”

“Ah,” Murphy says, distractedly as he double-checks the contents of his bag, “so this person you’re trying to keep secret  _ is  _ your girlfriend, then.”

“Guilty,” Clarke says, and then she’s standing at the doorway. 

“We’re almost ready,” Emori calls. “We can go down the mountain together, and then split up once we hit the city. That’s probably safest, right?”

“Right,” he agrees, and for one fleeting moment, he thinks that things might work out. He thinks that he may have told them about his dream fast enough for them to escape, and they may just get to keep their lives. He thinks he might have saved them - but Murphy has never been so lucky. 

They hear them before they see them. 

An ear-splitting howl rings out through the morning, moving closer and closer. Murphy’s eyes widen and he stumbles back from the window in shock, meeting Emori’s panicked gaze. The two of them recognize what this means immediately - and they also know that if they can hear them coming, it may already be too late. 

“That’s just wolves, right?” Clarke asks tentatively from behind them. “Please tell me that there are wolves around here.”

“No such luck,” Raven replies, her voice barely above a whisper. She doesn’t know exactly what the sound means, but she’s been alive long enough to clearly tell the mystical from the ordinary. 

Murphy’s fingers curl into fists. “Fuck!” he cries, because there’s nothing else that he can do, and he knows better than anyone how powerless they are against what’s coming. “We have to go. We have to run.”

“They’re coming from outside, though,” Emori says, her voice laced with just as much panic as his own is. “If we run, we’re running right into their path.”

“But if we stay here, then they can corner us,” he argues. “You and I both know these things won’t be stopped by a wall.”

Raven waves her arms, begging them both to calm down, but her own anxiety is clear. “What things?” she asks. “What’s coming?”

He can’t bring himself to say the word. Though she’s pale and trembling, Emori manages to speak up for him. “The  _ arei _ ,” she whispers. “The cursed spirits of Nyx.”

“Spirits don’t sound too bad,” Clarke says, but Murphy knows that her optimism is misplaced. The image of Nyx fills his mind, and he thinks of the smoky black tendrils that drifted all around her silhouette. He can’t explain the magic that goes into it, but those clusters of smoke are called  _ arei _ \- very much alive, and very much capable of murder. 

“I don’t understand,” Raven says. Outside, though the world is brightly lit and seems to be at peace, the howls grow louder. “What brought them here? How were they able to find this place?”

_ Because of me,  _ he thinks.  _ Because of what I’ve done - and because of what I brought inside with me.  _ Murphy opens his mouth to speak, to maybe say this or maybe to convince them to run, but it doesn’t matter. A curl of black smoke drifts past the window. They’re far too late - the  _ arei  _ have arrived. 

“In here!” Emori yells, grabbing Raven’s hand and dashing into the supply closet. Clarke makes it in next, fear etched into her face. He’s the last one across the room. Glass from the window shatters as he grabs the door and slams it closed, thick black smoke darting towards them. A second later, and it would have gotten inside with them. 

The door buckles and strains as the  _ arei _ attack it mercilessly. Murphy puts his back to it, both hands on the frame as he tries to block the weight of all the spirits. “What now?” he yells, being forced to scream over the howls coming from right outside. 

Everyone else is searching the shelves, trying to find something to help them combat the  _ arei _ , but coming up empty. The room’s not that big, and he knows that Emori only dragged them inside because there are no windows for the  _ arei _ to break through. Against his back, the wood from the door begins to splinter. 

“Can you transport us out of here?” Clarke cries. 

Emori winces. “Not far enough,” she says, “unless we go one at a time.”

“We can do that!” Murphy yells. “Take Raven first.”

“No way!” Raven protests, but he’s not going to be convinced otherwise, and he knows that Emori will agree. They both are well aware of the limitations of Emori’s power. Unless she’s being summoned, she can’t travel far, and it takes her an immense amount of energy - she very well may not be able to come back, let alone take two more people out of there. 

He looks at the goddess, who bites her lip and then nods. “I’ll be right back,” she says, closing her eyes in concentration. She reaches out for Raven’s hand, but - she never makes contact. Instead, Raven grabs and pushes Clarke into her grip, so fast that neither of them have time to stop and protest it. Murphy blinks, and then they’re gone, and only his half-sister remains in the room with him. 

“Why did you do that?” he hisses, straining to keep the door blocked. 

“I’m not leaving you,” she says. “We’re in this together.”

Murphy wants to say more. He wants to yell at her, to burst into tears, or maybe to bring her into a warm embrace, but he’s got no time. Raven cries out a warning as the door splinters and cracks, breaking open right in the middle. 

At times like these, he’s thankful for his godly half and he’s thankful for all those hours spent hunting with Bellamy, because though he doesn’t have time to think, he doesn’t need to. Murphy turns around, facing the carnage of the door, and then he kicks outwards, the rest of the wood falling off its hinges from the impact of his foot and crashing to the floor outside. He can see clearly now, as two distinct coils of black smoke drift around each other, and then dart through the air towards their now-exposed targets. They do nothing but howl, but Murphy’s convinced he can hear one of them laugh. 

_ You’ve never done anything for me, father,  _ he thinks, hoping it somehow reaches Hephaestus up in the clouds,  _ so surely you owe me this one, right?  _

He lifts his hands, both of them enveloped in a bright fire in seconds. Then, with a yell, he extends his arms outwards, putting every ounce of power and control he has into the movement. A feeling he’s never felt before washes over him as lightning-hot fire rushes out from his palms and past the broken door, creating a thick wall of flames that even the  _ arei _ can’t cross. It’s like everything slows down, and he’s aware of everything happening around him, even though all his attention is focused on keeping the fire controlled yet hot enough that the spirits would be burned. Raven stands behind him, and though he can’t see her, it’s as if he can feel her heartbeat, just as he can feel his own. 

For the first time, as he puts every ounce of his godly genetics to use, he thinks he understands what it must feel like to  _ be  _ a god. Truthfully - Murphy doesn’t think he likes it. 

Somehow, he manages to keep the fire controlled, so that as it billows out from his palms it doesn’t light anything in the cottage itself. Rather, it stays as a sort of wall, blocking out the doorway. On the other side of the fire, he can vaguely hear the howls of the frustrated  _ arei _ , but this sound is growing less and less distinctive. He can’t hear Raven’s heartbeat anymore, and his fleeting sense of near-omnipotence is slipping away. 

“I didn’t know you could do this,” Raven whispers in awe. 

_ Neither did I,  _ he thinks, but he can’t verbalize it. Sweat beads at his brow and he slowly drops to his knees. He’s only half-god, after all, and the human part of him is not built for this. There’s no way he can keep this up for much longer, and after that, he’s got no more tricks up his sleeve to keep them at bay. 

There’s a small  _ crash _ behind him. Emori’s transported herself back into the room, stumbling and knocking things off the shelf as she gathers her bearings. “You idiot,” she says to Raven. “Don’t do something like that again.”

“Sorry,” Raven says, but they all know she doesn’t mean it. “Is Clarke safe?”

“Yeah, she’s far enough away, but I - I don’t think I can do that again.”

“There’s only two of them,” Raven tells her. “I don’t think Nyx knew there were four people here.”

Emori sighs. “Two of them is still more than enough.”

Murphy’s eyes squeeze shut as he forces himself to breathe, and to keep control over the fire that’s begging to go wild and destroy the whole building, taking them all down with it. “Hurry!” he manages to cry out. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Raven says, softly. “I can’t - I can’t solve this, and Murphy can’t do this for much longer. I think - this is it.”

There’s a pause. He’s seconds away from losing strength, and they’re all mere moments away from certain death. “No,” Emori says, forcefully from behind them. “No - this isn’t it. Not yet.”

Several things happen, very quickly. Murphy’s strength gives out and his arms fall, the fire dissipating and vanishing into the air. He looks down, unwilling to face the  _ arei _ head-on as they dart towards them, but then there’s a hand on his back and suddenly, he’s not where he was before. 

He’s still on the ground, on his hands and knees, but when he looks up, somehow he’s been transported to the other side of the cottage. Raven’s next to him, stumbling slightly out of confusion, but then pure terror dawns in her eyes and she screams.  _ “No!”  _

Across the room, Emori still stands in the supply room. She’s fallen to her knees as well from exhaustion, but she smiles as she looks at Raven. A single tear falls down her cheek. “I love you,” she says. 

_ “No!”  _ Raven repeats, and she moves to step forwards, but Murphy reaches up and grabs her hand, stopping her. There are tears at the corner of his eyes and he hates himself for holding her there, but he understands the sacrifice that has been made for them. Emori used the last of her strength to transport them out of harm’s way, to buy them just a little more time, but she didn’t have enough power to bring herself with them. 

The  _ arei _ waste no time, darting into the supply room. Emori keeps her eyes locked on Raven’s, the love never leaving her gaze, not even as one of the dark tendrils races towards her and crashes into her chest, moving inside of her body without even leaving a mark. Dark black veins stretch across her skin as the spirit does what it came to do. “I love-” she tries to say, one more time, but then her autonomy is taken from her and she’s frozen, silently caught in a final expression of love. 

There’s a soft crashing sound, as if rocks are tumbling past one another. The black veins on her skin darken and grow larger, and then in seconds, Emori’s very body crumbles and turns to dust, taking the  _ arei _ with it. Her remains scatter across the floor, the soft wind coming inside from the broken window catching some of them in its drift. 

Murphy’s own breath hitches and he looks away, cursing softly under his breath. The deep well of sorrow begins to build up in his chest and his skin feels hot, not from the fire but from the intense melancholy, but he keeps a careful hold of Raven’s hand. She’s still standing, somehow, but she’s staggering back, shaking her head ferociously, refusing to accept what they’ve just seen. 

Emori’s taken one of the  _ arei _ with her to the grave, but there is still one more spirit to go. It circles around through the supply room, looking for more potential victims, before coming back to the broken doorway and spotting them, changing its flight path to cross the cottage. 

“Raven,” he whispers, pulling on her hand, “we have to go.” His voice is thick and hoarse with emotion, and though he tries to stand, he’s still on his knees. Murphy tries to summon just an ounce more of fire, but only sparks shoot up from his tired palms. 

The  _ arei _ comes closer. There’s only seconds before it hits, and it’s aiming downwards, no doubt coming for him. After all, he’s the one that Nyx wanted - it makes sense they’d seek him out. “Run,” he tries to tell her. “Find Clarke. She’s going somewhere safe, she said.”

Raven doesn’t move. She stands tall, her eyes full of determination and grief. “They’re not going to leave us alone, and you - you deserve to have a happy ending, Murphy,” she says. 

“Raven-”

“I already got mine,” she continues, and though she keeps holding onto his hand, she steps forwards, right in front of him. 

“Wait, no-”

“Make sure you save him,” she says, and though it looks like she wants to say more, the  _ arei _ hits her skin with a howl and she’s as good as gone. 

He yells, but the smoky black spirit is already deep inside her chest. The same black veins that had appeared on Emori’s skin now grace hers and she looks back before she no longer has the ability to do so, a sad smile on her face as she loses the ability to move and freezes. Her hand is still in hers and he feels it as her skin grows cold, and then hard as stone, and he feels it as she crumbles to dust and her ashes fall to the floor. He catches some of them in his palm and for a second, he can do nothing but stare. 

The  _ arei _ are gone. The cottage sits in silence. A cold breeze runs through the room from the broken window, and outside, the sunlight bathes the world in peace.

For a second, he only sits and stares, but then he  _ screams _ . The pain and anger build up inside him into something more and he catches fire, flames spreading across his whole body as he cries out a lament for all he’s just lost. Where the world was once full of the  _ arei’s  _ cries, now they are filled with his own howls. 

Once again, he’s ruined everything. He knows, with a horrible certainty, that he’s to be held at fault for their deaths. He knows that he’s nothing more than a burning boy, caught in an endless cycle, holding the remains of his dead sister less than a day after her wedding. 

The flames across his body do not spread to the rest of the cottage, but he wishes that they would. He wishes that they would burn the wood to pieces and bring the whole building down on top of him, and he wishes that he could be nothing more than a boy who burned too brightly and brought the world down all around him. 

It doesn’t seem fair, he thinks, that he’s the only one still standing amidst his own destruction. It doesn’t seem fair at all - so he sits, and he burns, and he cries, the only three things he knows that he can do right. 

* * *

By the time his fire went out and his limbs had started working again, night had long since fallen, throwing the destruction of the cabin into darkness. The only light shining through comes from the stars and the moon, far above. It’s peaceful in here, somehow, he thinks. There are far worse places to lay down and die. 

But - Murphy has never learned how to do this. Rather, he stands on stiff legs and slowly and wordlessly walks out of the cottage. His worn boots further break the splinters on the floor and his bag, somehow still in one piece, jostles over his shoulder. 

He turns back, only once, only when he’s standing on the gravel path of the mountainside. The cottage sits tall, undisturbed, the only sign that its owners lay dead inside the remnants of broken glass, still attached to the window frame. 

Murphy can’t bury them. There’s nothing left of them to bury. He knows that their souls are already gone, down to the Underworld to be judged, and there’s nothing more he can do about it. Still - he can’t leave them, not like this, not when they sacrificed their life and love to bring him his own. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and though there’s more on the tip of his tongue, he falls silent. Emotion threatens his voice and he feels more tears in the corner of his eyes, though he had been so sure he’d cried them all already. Rather than say what he wants to, he sends up a quick wordless prayer to the gods to ensure their souls saw rest, wherever they ended up, and that they could spend eternity together - somewhere. 

The fire burning in his blood hurts him as he calls upon it, begging him to let it rest, but he doesn’t listen. Once again, he extends a hand towards the cottage, and within seconds, the building is in flames. It burns brightly and loudly against the serene night, a bonfire of loss, and he hopes that Raven and Emori would be okay with this send-off. 

He hopes that somehow, wherever they were, that they would be okay - and with this, he turns around, his own figure silhouetted by the burning fire as he descends down the mountainside. 

* * *

He finds Clarke at the base of the mountain, which is something that neither of them were expecting. “Murphy?” she calls, running up to him. The entrance to the city, where he’s been heading, is only a little ways off, and must have been where she’d come from. “Murphy, what happened?”

“It’s over,” he said, a little too harshly. He’s trying to brush by her and continue on his way, but she steps in front of him, blocking his path. 

“Where are Raven and Emori?” she asks, and then when he doesn’t say anything but avoid her gaze, she continues. “Emori transported me right behind some little cafe, and she told me to wait, and that she’d be right back with everyone else - but no one came. I waited there all day, but no one came, so now-”

“Now you’re coming back, like an idiot,” he snaps. “What if there were more  _ arei _ , huh? You’re prepared to take them on by yourself?”

She sighs, but she surprisingly doesn’t look offended. “I had to make sure that everyone was okay,” she says. “But if you’re here, that’s good, isn’t it? You defeated them?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“But - did Raven and Emori go a different way? Did you guys split up?”

“They’re dead.” It frightens him how flat and emotionless his voice sounds. 

Clarke looks like she’s about to speak, but then the weight of his words sink in and she flounders for a moment. “What?” she whispers, her bottom lip trembling. “I don’t - what?”

The outskirts of the city look so enticing, and he wants nothing more than to keep walking on his way and keep walking towards the completion mark of his quest, but something stops him. They’re on friendly terms, to be sure, but Murphy doesn’t have the time nor patience to console a goddess about the loss of his sister and closest friend - yet still, he stays. Later, he’ll blame it on the grief as to why he didn’t leave her in his dust. 

“There were two  _ arei _ ,” he explains, “and they each sacrificed themselves. For me.”

A tear falls down Clarke’s cheek, shining through the night as the tears of goddesses often do. “I don’t - they’re  _ gone _ ?”

His heart feels so, so heavy. “They’re gone.”

They stand in silence, until Clarke composes herself enough to continue speaking. “Where are you going to go next?” She seems to understand that he doesn’t want to talk about the loss, or lament, or fall to pieces (again), and for this, he’s grateful. 

“I’m going to complete my quest. Raven’s last words,” he says, pausing to collect himself after he says this, “told me to save Bellamy, so I’m going to.”

“Who’s Bellamy?”

Murphy lets out a startled gasp at this, and he realizes that he never even told her the details of his curse. “Bellamy’s the love of my life,” he whispers, thinking how just a day earlier, Raven was professing her own undying love to Emori. “He’s cursed to hunt me down for all eternity, and I’m trying to save us both.”

Clarke blinks, then shakes her head softly, clearly doing her best to compartmentalize all she’s just learned. “Okay,” she says, “where do you need to go? Let me help you.”

“No. I don’t need your help. I don’t need anyone’s help.”

“Raven wanted you to do this, right? Let me help you get there.”

“No,” he repeats, more forcefully this time. “If you help me, you’re going to end up dead, just like them. Just - leave me alone, okay? Don’t you have a girlfriend to go find?” With that, he starts to walk away into the night. 

He knows she’s the goddess of diplomacy, but he’s still somewhat surprised at how patient a disposition she maintains. “Let me do this for Raven and Emori, then,” she says, quietly, and this gets him to once again stop in his tracks. “Where are you trying to go, Murphy?”

Murphy sighs, then turns back to face her, throwing his arms up in defeat. “The Hesperides, okay?” he snaps. “I’m trying to get to the garden of the Hesperides.”

Despite it all, a small smile forms on her face. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No,” he grumbles. “I know, it’s hilarious, I’m trying to get into the most well-guarded place on earth, full of the children of the very goddess who cursed me. What a riot this all is, huh?”

She shakes her head, laughing dryly. “No, I - I know where the garden is. I can take you there.”

He stops, then blinks in shock. Surely, it isn’t this easy. There’s no way the answers he’s been seeking for two thousand years are coming to him in the form of a shunned blonde goddess. There’s no way that, after all this time, all he had to do was seek her out. “I don’t believe you,” he finally says. “You just don’t want to be on your own, is that it? You’re trying to trick me into travelling with you?”

“I’m not lying.”

“Tell me, then,” he says, “how is it that a minor goddess came to learn the location of the most well-guarded place on this planet? How is it that you, and no one else, know where the Hesperides are?”

“Because,” she replies, not missing a beat, “I’m sleeping with one.”

“You’re - what?”

She nods. “My girlfriend that I’m going to go find,” she explains, “is one of the Hesperides, Murphy. Her name is Lexa. I’m going there myself, tonight, and I’ll take you with me.”

This, on top of Raven and Emori’s loss, is almost too much to process. “All this time,” he finally manages to say, “I have been searching for all this time, and you knew.”

“I would have told you,” she says, “if you had asked. Now - are you coming, or not?”

She’s the one to turn on him, this time, beginning to walk away from the city and around the mountainside. Murphy stands alone for a moment, the night all around him, and then without a second thought, he follows her into the darkness. 

* * *

They’re not walking long. “There’s a reason Emori chose this safehouse for me,” she says. “We’re in Iceland, if you didn’t know.”

He hadn’t known - he’d never bothered to ask. There were a lot of things he’d never bothered to say to the two of them, thinking he’d always get another chance, and he knows that he’ll regret it all until the day he died. “Don’t tell me Emori knew the location of the garden, too.”

“No,” Clarke says, quickly. They’re walking across mossy rocks, moving closer and closer to a body of water. It’s still dark all around them, but dawn is only minutes away from breaking. “I told her that my girlfriend was in Iceland, but I just needed a week or so to make sure I wasn’t being followed. Luckily for me, the cottage happens to be extremely close to the entrance to the garden.”

“I don’t understand,” he says. “I tried Iceland. I tried everywhere. I’ve probably been in this very spot before. How did I not find it? More importantly, how do you know it’s here? Doesn’t it move every single day?”

She hums. “That’s a myth.”

“A  _ myth _ ?”

“It’s true that it’s only accessible at the start of sunrise or the end of sunset,” she says, “but the location doesn’t move. It’s always been here, and will always be here.”

He shakes his head out of disbelief, almost embarrassed at how he had been duped by a simple myth. “Fine,” he mutters, doing his absolute best to ignore and push down all of his emotions. It’s been a very, very long night, and all he wants is to rest. “So the entrance to the garden is in Iceland. I can live with that.”

She laughs, and then descends down a rocky outcrop, Murphy following close behind. They’re almost at the edge of the water now, a giant marshy lake that stretches as far as the eye can see. “We’re here,” she says, as she stands at the very edge of a small peninsula, so close to the edge that the toes of her boots are wet. 

Murphy looks around at the lake, a scene that, while beautiful, is nowhere close to a garden. “Are you sure?”

“Very,” she replies, looking up at the sky. The sun is only starting to break through the clouds, a fraction of its light descending upon them. “About a minute more, and we’re good to go.”

“So - what is it? Does a door appear? Is there a hidden pathway?”

Clarke smiles, and then laughs. “Oh, no. Nothing that easy.”

“What is it, then?”

She points, and his stomach drops when he follows her finger. “Oh, you don’t mean-”

“The entrance is underwater,” she confirms. “About a hundred metres deep. There’s going to be a bright green light. Just swim right into it, and you’re there.”

“A bright green light in the middle of a lake,” he whispers. “Fantastic.” As the light from the sun increases, he can just start to see the massive depth the lake carries. The surface shimmers in the morning’s luminescence, almost begging them to enter and give it their best shot. 

“I hope you’re a good swimmer.”

“I’m definitely not,” he mutters. “Are you sure there’s no other way to do this?”

Clarke raises an eyebrow. “No,” she says. “Aren’t you eager to get to the garden, after all this time?”

He sighs. “Of course I am,” he says, but then he adjusts his bag against his back with a furrowed brow. “My bag will get wet, though.”

“That’s what you’re worried about?”

“I’ve spent two thousand years getting this stuff, Clarke, of course that’s what I’m worried about.”

She rolls her eyes, then cracks her knuckles, preparing to jump in. “Don’t,” she tells him. “Everything will be fine once you make it through the light, you got it?”

“Right,” he says, completely unconvinced, but he doesn’t have time to ask her anything more. She leaps into the lake without another thought, diving in gracefully and immediately disappearing from view. 

Above him, the sun only gets brighter, and he knows that the start of sunset doesn’t last forever. “I really hope you’re right about this,” he says, and with that he follows her in, hoping that the chilled waters of the lake aren’t harsh enough to extinguish his fire forever. 

Maybe, he thinks, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world - but he carries on, anyways. That’s all he’s ever known how to do. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehe....sorry for that. also surprise! double update.
> 
> i hope that was alright, considering, and thank you for continuing to read this story and give it a chance! i'm really excited about this one, and the amount of love i have gotten is just...so special to me. so thank you. i so deeply appreciate it. special thanks goes out to blueparacosm and oogaboogu for always listening to me ramble and change my mind a million times as to what i was going to do with this story. 
> 
> as per always, you can find me on twitter @reidsnora <3.


	5. five.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I crawled out the window and ran into the woods.   
> I had to make up all the words myself.   
> The way they taste, the way they sound in the air.   
> I passed through a narrow gate, stumbled in,   
> stumbled around for a while, and stumbled back out.   
> I made this place for you. A place for you to love me.   
> If this isn't a kingdom, I don't know what is."

**Then-;**

At the start of sunrise, two days after Nyx had visited them, Murphy lay in an open field, Bellamy at his side. They had spent all night together, never leaving each other’s sides for a moment. Both of them refused to sleep lest they lose one of the last remaining brief seconds they had to share. 

The run rose slowly, its bright and harsh light enveloping them. Murphy used to love moments like this. He used to love how it felt to lay in the grass, to feel every blade brush against his skin as the fire in his blood was outmatched by the sun. He used to love pretending to be so very mortal, for just a moment - pretending that moments like this, moments imbued with love, were all there was to life. He thought he’d feel the same this morning as dawn broke but all he felt was a sinking feeling in his chest and a horrible, pressing sense of dread. 

Today, in only a few hours, Murphy was going to get his quest. Today, the start of sunrise did not bring him joy, contentment, or love, no - today it brought him an awful certainty that his life was coming to an abrupt end. 

“What if you don’t go?” Bellamy asked quietly, his voice barely louder than the soft wind in the clearing. 

Murphy sighed. It wasn’t the first time he’d asked that question. “They’ll just kill me,” he said, “and you’ll be in danger of their wrath, too.”

“But - what if we run away together?” he continued. “They’re just gods. They’re always up on Olympus, they won’t care what goes on down here.”

It was refreshing, in a sense, to hear them referred to as  _ just gods.  _ “The questing cycle is part of the fabric of the universe, now,” Murphy said. “If I don’t do my part, then - Nyx said Raven would be chosen next.”

Bellamy huffed. He didn’t fight him on that point, knowing how deeply Murphy cared for his sister, but he wasn’t done yet. “It’s not fair,” he said. “You didn’t ask for this.”

“No,” he replied. “If I could have chosen, I wouldn’t be half-god in the first place.” The fire just below his skin roared in protest, threatening to explode outwards and send the bright green clearing up in flames in indignation. Murphy hated that fire, he truly did. He hated that there was magic embedded in his very being that he had very little control over, and he hated, more than anything, how destructive it wanted to be. 

“See, that’s exactly why it’s not fair,” Bellamy continued. “There are countless other demigods out there, right? Surely one of them would volunteer to take the next quest.”

“Maybe,” Murphy agreed, “but it doesn’t work like that. Nyx chooses, not us.”

“And why does she get final say?”

“Because she’s a goddess, and that’s how these things go.”

Once again, he huffed. Murphy was looking straight up at the sun, but he could feel the pure anger etched onto Bellamy’s face. “Maybe someone should do something to change that,” he said. “Maybe it’s time.”

Murphy’s eyes narrowed, only partially due to the bright light coming into them from the sun. “Don’t, Bell,” he said. “Don’t - you can’t think like that.”

“Why not? I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Yeah,” he agreed with a sigh, “you  _ are _ right - but it doesn’t really matter. If I challenge the gods, in any matter, they’ll just kill me and move on to the next demigod. That’s what they always do.”

“I’ll go with you,” Bellamy said. “We’ll both go up to Olympus, and we’ll challenge the gods on this.”

Murphy paused, sighing quietly under his breath. He knew that Bellamy was just saying these things because he was desperate, and time was slipping away from his grasp, but the line of thinking he was going down was dangerous. “I’ve never even been to Olympus,” he finally said, “and I’m fairly certain they don’t allow mortals up there.”

“I’ll - I’ll bring my bow.”

“A mortal archer is not going to scare the gods. They’ll kill you with a wave of a hand.”

“Not if I-”

“Bellamy, please,” he said, and then he reached out, grabbing Bellamy’s hand in his own. His skin felt soft and warm and the touch felt like home, so much so that it almost made Murphy sob at the knowledge he was going to be giving it up in a few hour’s time. “I can’t - I need to know that you’ll be safe. No matter what happens to me, no matter where they send me on the quest that I get, I need you to be okay.”

Bellamy didn’t reply for a very long time. “I won’t be,” he finally said. “I won’t be okay if you’re not there.”

“Yes, you will,” he whispered, though his heart ached. “Octavia will be back soon, and you have all the people of your village depending on you and your hunting skills. You have a very long life in front of you, Bell, and I’m not letting you give that up for me.”

“None of it matters. None of it is going to matter to me.”

“I’m always going to be thankful for the time we spent,” Murphy continued, his voice threatening to break with emotion, “and never once am I going to stop thinking about you. But I need to stay alive on this quest, for as long as I can, and if I know that you’re in danger, I’ll - I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Bellamy paused. “No - you need to finish the quest, as quickly as possible, so you can come home.”

“I can’t,” he said, but oh, how he wanted to. 

“I know it will be something incredibly difficult, but if there’s one person who can complete a god-given quest, it’s you. I know it’s you, Murphy.”

“Even if I could - I can’t. I have to take as long as I possibly can.”

At this, Bellamy looked over at him, their eyes meeting below the glow of the morning sunlight. “You don’t want to come back to me?” he asked, softly. 

Murphy shook his head, quickly, tightening his grip on his hand. “Bell, I want to,” he promised him. “I want nothing more than to storm up to Olympus and challenge the gods, no matter what they do in response. I want nothing more than to rush through this quest as quickly as possible and come home to you, free from all this, and I want absolutely  _ nothing  _ more than to spend a lifetime with you, but I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because,” he said, softly, “Raven’s immortal - and I’m not.”

“I don’t understand.”

Murphy sighed, his heart heavy as he thought of how whether or not he lived until old age and died of natural means, his sister would forever be the age she is now. “The demigod magic in her makes her immortal,” he explained, “and Nyx told me she was next to be chosen for a quest. If I die, then it’s her turn.”

Slowly, understanding dawned on Bellamy’s face. “So even if you  _ do _ complete the quest,” he said, “The cycle would continue, and Raven would get a quest next.”

“Yes,” Murphy said, “and I can’t do that to her. She hasn’t found her happiness yet, not like I have, and I need to give her as long as I possibly can.”

Bellamy looked like he wanted to argue, for just a second, but then he nodded. “I would do the same for Octavia,” he said, “so - I understand. I hate absolutely everything about this, but I understand.”

Murphy hummed sadly. “I am sorry,” he said. “I knew this was always a possibility, but I just - I didn’t think it would happen, you know?”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Still,” he said, “I would do anything to get out of this if I could. I really would. But as soon as the oracle tells me my quest - I don’t have a choice.”

Bellamy paused. “The cycle starts as soon as the oracle gives you the quest?”

“Yes.”

“Like - as soon as he speaks it aloud?”

Murphy paused. “Yes. Why?”

“Nothing,” Bellamy said, a little too quickly. If it weren’t their last morning together for the rest of eternity, Murphy would have pressed a little harder, and asked him what he meant one more time, but he didn’t think it mattered. At the time, he didn’t put together what Bellamy was thinking, and so, in the moment he’d regret for the rest of his life - he let the subject drop. 

For a few hours more, they lay in the field, taking in the sunshine and each other’s company. Murphy breathed in every breath like it was his last. He never let go of Bellamy’s hand, not until the sun began to creep higher and higher in the sky until it was dangerously close to reaching its apex. With a deep regret, at this moment he stood, and Bellamy reluctantly followed. 

“The caves are close,” Murphy said, sadly. “It won’t take me more than a half hour to get there, but I can’t be late.”

“I know.”

They stood, facing each other, Bellamy’s back against the sun. Murphy may have been the one with fire brewing below his skin, but the bright silhouette made Bellamy look far more powerful than he could ever be. “I am going to miss you, so, so much.”

Bellamy paused, trying and failing to swallow his emotion. “There isn’t going to be a day,” he said, “where I don’t think of you. Where I don’t miss you.”

“I know,” he whispered. “Me, too.”

“But I have faith,” Bellamy continued, “that we  _ will _ meet again.”

He didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was fairly sure he was wrong. It was a nice sentiment, and truthfully, Murphy wished he could believe it. “I love you,” he said, “and that’s why I want you to take this.”

Murphy reached into his pocket, pulling out the glass case with the white calla lily still inside. Gently, he took it from the case and handed it over. “No,” Bellamy said, immediately. “That’s yours. You keep it.”

“I need you to have something to remember me by.”

“No, I-”

“Please, Bell.” He didn’t know if he could cope, seeing that flower every day, and he knew he would feel much better if it were back in their home, a reminder of what they had - and what they’d lost. 

Bellamy clearly didn’t want to, but he took the flower regardless, tucking it into his own jacket. As his own memento, Murphy kept the case, neatly putting it back where it came. “I love you,” he repeated. 

“I love you, too,” Bellamy said, and then with tears brewing in his eyes he leaned forwards, sliding a hand around the back of Murphy’s neck and bringing him in for a soft kiss. They were both crying, at this point, but they lingered in the kiss for as long as they could, until their remaining time was taken from them and Murphy had to pull away, lest he be late. 

He smiled, looking down at the bright green grass below their feet, then back at Bellamy’s soft gaze. “Parting,” he whispered, “such sweet sorrow, huh?”

Bellamy did his best to smile, despite it all. “Yeah. It is.”

“Goodbye, Bellamy.”

A pause, and then, “Goodbye, Murphy.”

With that, Murphy used all his courage to turn around and walk away from the sun, towards the dark cave system that was only a little ways away. He wiped the tears from his eyes and kept moving forwards, putting one foot in front of the other, even though all he wanted was to lay down in the field and cry until the earth swallowed him up. Still - he was not about to let a goddess see him cry. 

If he’d been paying more attention, maybe he would have noticed that Bellamy didn’t turn around to go back to the village. Maybe he would have noticed that Bellamy waited until he was out of sight and then picked up the bow he’d hidden behind the foliage, and then followed Murphy away from the horizon, keeping just enough distance so that he wouldn’t be noticed. 

Sometimes, Murphy thought back to this moment and he wondered how he didn’t notice all this, but - he was only half-god, after all. 

* * *

The Theopetra Caves were close. It didn’t take Murphy long to reach them, and just as the sun was creeping to its highest point in the sky, he stepped into the clearing that marked their entrance. A large mountainside loomed in front of him. The opening of the cave itself was built into this rocky face and then twisted downwards, leading to numerous places. He knew that the cave system went deep underground and he thought he’d have to venture inside, but the oracle is standing at the entrance, waiting for him. 

“Jonathan Murphy,” the oracle called as he approached. “You have arrived.”

“Quite clearly,” Murphy replied. 

The oracle was no taller than he was, and wore a simple grey robe and a hood that obscured most of his face. Murphy knew that all the oracles were mortals, once, who had been devout followers of Nyx until she chose them to bear the gift of prophecy, but he had still been expecting something a little more impressive. If the oracle could tell what he was thinking, though, he paid it no mind. “Another demigod, another quest,” he said, “and the cycle begins anew.”

Murphy sighed. “Can we get on with it?” he asked. 

The oracle chuckled. “You’re impatient,” he remarked. 

“No, I would just rather not be here.”

“Yes, I know,” he said. 

Murphy paused. “You know?”

The oracle hummed softly. “I can see your past,” he said, “as can I your present, your future, and everything in between.”

“How interesting,” Murphy said, sarcasm biting in his tone. 

There was a pause, as the oracle briefly got lost in thought. Though the hood still covered his eyes, Murphy got the sense he was staring right at him, and somehow, right through him. “Ah,” he finally said, “yes, your destiny - it’s quite a bright one, you know. What you have in front of you is something we have been waiting to come to pass for quite a long time now.”

Once, a very long time ago, Murphy’s father had told him that he had a great destiny in front of him - and then he’d thrown him out of Olympus and out of his home for all eternity. “Fantastic,” Murphy snapped. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

“Consider this a warning,” the oracle continued, completely ignoring Murphy’s harshness. “Your destiny is far bigger than just you, or those you care about. What you do after this day and with the knowledge I am about to give you will have repercussions for all of mankind.”

Just for a moment, Murphy felt slightly nervous at what he was about to hear. He didn’t want a great destiny. He didn’t want any part of this whatsoever. “Okay,” he said. “Consider me warned.”

The oracle nodded. “Jonathan Murphy,” he began, “the divine Nyx has sent me a prophecy of your fate. As you are the next bearer of the quest cycle, the gods thank you for your service. Your quest is to-”

With that, the oracle stopped speaking. It took Murphy a second to realize it was because there was now an arrow embedded in the side of his skull. 

He stumbled back, fire sparking in his palms as the oracle fell to the ground with a  _ thud.  _ His hood fell, revealing the face of a mortal man, eyes wide open and very much dead. Murphy whirled around, preparing himself to fight off whatever threat was coming his way, only when he saw it, the fire in his hands immediately went out. 

“I never miss,” Bellamy said, standing only a little ways away, his bow still held tightly in his hands. 

“Bellamy,” Murphy whispered, gaze moving from him to the oracle’s corpse, “what have you done?”

**Now-;**

The water is surprisingly warm. Murphy doesn’t know if that’s because of the magic of the moment, or if the waters in the lake are naturally not as cold as they should be, but as he swims down through it he’s grateful. 

It’s hard to see, but he thinks Clarke is just a little ways in front of him, swimming faster than he can. She’s clearly been here more than once, and is well practiced at the route in. If he wasn’t so focused on holding his breath and making it to the garden, he’d lament the fact that he hadn’t told her about his quest sooner, so that he could have known how to get here, and then maybe - maybe Raven and Emori would be alive, right here next to him. 

If he thinks about it for too long, he can almost hear Emori laugh, and he can almost see Raven, swimming right next to him, getting ready to make fun of him for being so slow - 

Up ahead of him, the dimness of the water is suddenly enveloped in a bright green light, and he lets these thoughts leave him. Murphy isn’t sure if he’s seeing it right, but it quite literally looks like a bright green orb, hovering in the middle of the water. Clarke’s swimming right for it. As soon as she enters its embrace, she vanishes from his view. 

The thought has occurred to him that this is a trap. Clarke very well could have sold him out to Nyx, or any of the other gods - after all, all he’s going off of is her word. Still, he picks up the pace and swims faster, the green light now right in front of him. Raven and Emori trusted her. They trusted her enough to save her, more than once, and he has to honour their memory by doing the same. 

With that, he swims forwards and lets the green light take him somewhere else. 

In one moment, he’s quite far down in the middle of a dark lake, and then as he swims through the light, the temperature of the water shifts dramatically. He’s facing the surface now, somehow, and he’s cold. Murphy’s got no time to process it properly. He’s running out of air and the fire in his blood is screaming, angry with him for suffocating it for so long. With a kick, he pushes towards the surface and breaks through, taking a deep breath of fresh air as he does so. 

The green light is reminiscent of Emori’s magic, in the sense that he’s been magically transported to someplace completely different. He realizes, as he treds water, that he’s no longer in the Icelandic lake - no, now he’s in a small but deep pond, and all around him is a bright and brilliant green. He’s never seen a place on earth as pristine as the landscape all around him, adorned with tall trees, some with fresh fruit hanging off them, and flowers of every kind and colour. It had been sunrise, only moments ago, but the sun here is perched high in the sky and large, fluffy clouds float by. In the center of it all, there’s a large gate, adorned with writing from the olden times that he thinks reads  _ ‘by the light of the sun.’  _ He can’t tell what is behind the gate itself, but judging from the rest of the scenery, he knows it can only be something beautiful. 

“Hey, slowpoke,” someone says, and he looks back to the edge of the pond. Clarke’s standing there, somehow completely dry, holding out a hand for him. “Took you long enough - I thought you were going to miss it.”

He rolls his eyes, but he makes it over to the edge and grabs her hand, allowing her to help him emerge from the water. Murphy doesn’t realize it’s happening until he’s standing completely on land again, but his clothes are dry, just like hers, and his drawstring bag, securely on his back, is dry as well. “This is the garden, then?” he asks, looking around once again. He can’t explain it, but just being here and taking in the fresh air, he feels an odd sense of peace. Everything that had happened to him only hours previous still weighs heavy and fresh in his mind, but as the sweet smell of the flowers and fruit hits him, he smiles. 

“What gave it away?” Clarke asks, but she, too, wears an easy smile. “Come on. I’ll take you to meet Lexa and the other Hesperides. Make a good impression, okay? I didn’t exactly get permission to bring you here.”

“Oh, sure, I’ll just make a good impression. I’m definitely prepared for that,” Murphy grumbles, adjusting his bag on his shoulder and following Clarke towards the large black gate. The closer he gets, the more the tremendous detail and craftsmanship in the architecture reveals itself. It’s about twice his height, stretching up towards the sky, and through the bars he can only vaguely see more greenery - besides that, he has no idea what’s about to greet them. 

Clarke pushes on the gate, softly, and though it stays still for a moment, as soon as her palm completely touches its surface it unlocks itself. The door silently swings open, allowing them entrance. “It’s genetically locked,” she explains, waving her fingers at him. 

“You’re a show-off.”

“You’re just jealous,” she replies, and then she walks through the open gate, giving him no choice but to follow. 

A cobblestone path leads from the gate into the guarded section of the garden. Somehow, the lush foliage all around them is even brighter and greener than what lay outside of it. Tall trees arch up towards the sky. Bright flowers, some growing as high as his waist, adorn the pathways. Though the path is underneath his boots, he can almost feel the soft grass next to it underneath his feet, and he wants nothing more than to lay down in it and stay there forever. 

This, though, is nothing compared to what lay at the end of the path. 

The trees open up to a large clearing, the cobblestone path lining the outskirts of it, so as to form a sort of enclosed square. Everything inside this square, however, takes Murphy’s breath away as he can do nothing but stand and stare. On the left, a large fire burns and crackles, somehow contained within itself and not catching onto any of the greenery all around it. He likes to think he understands fire more than most, and this one burns with such a heat and intensity that it should take down the whole garden with it in seconds, yet it stays completely contained, a bright orange orb situated against a world of green. Right next to it is a tree. It seems completely normal, but as his eyes drift higher, he audibly gasps as he sees numerous pure golden apples hanging from its branches. They shine and shimmer in the light of the sun and the fire, hanging there so tantalizing it’s hard for him to look away. 

After two thousand years of searching, the golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides are right in front of him, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself now that he’s found them. 

Murphy’s so engrossed with the fire and the tree that he doesn’t notice the Hesperides themselves until Clarke breaks the stillness by walking up to them. There are four of them in the square, three of them sitting underneath the shade of the golden tree, and the fourth standing by the fire, watching it intensely. They’re all wearing long gowns, though the colours vary, and each of them wear their hair long and braided. He knows that technically they are all daughters of Nyx, but they come across as nothing like her. 

“Clarke,” one of them says, rising from where she had been sitting against the trunk of the tree. “I see you’re visiting again.”

“Hello to you, too, Anya,” Clarke says, and then she gestures over at the fire and the girl who, despite the new visitors, has done nothing but stand and stare at the flames. 

The Hesperide she’s speaking to, Anya, rolls her eyes but then moves over to the fire, tapping the other girl on the shoulder as she does so. For a moment, both of them stand still and stare at the fire, and then only Anya is in that position and the other girl blinks, moving away from the flames. “Clarke,” she says, warmly. “I am so pleased to see you back.”

She comes close to Clarke, standing next to her, and it looks like she’s about to pull her in for a kiss before she realizes that they’re not alone. Her gaze snaps to him and her eyes narrow as she stares him up and down. “Lexa,” Clarke says, quickly, “this is Murphy. He’s my friend.”

“I see,” Lexa says, slowly. Murphy tries his best to smile and give a small wave, suddenly feeling very small as Lexa stares at him, quickly joined at her side by the other two Hesperides who had yet to speak. “Tell me, Clarke, that you have a very good reason for bringing a stranger into our home.”

“I do,” Clarke replies, quickly. “He’s on a quest, and he’s been trying to find this place for thousands of years.”

One of the other Hesperides scoff. “So not only have you brought a stranger - you have brought a  _ demigod _ .”

Lexa holds up a hand, silencing her. Murphy knows, from what Clarke told him earlier, that Lexa is her girlfriend, but judging from her stance and the way her sisters listen to her command, she’s also at least somewhat in charge. “You know you have my trust, Clarke,” she says, “but you also know there are rules.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Many have tried to find us. All of them have failed - and for good reason.”

“This is different.”

They keep talking, going back and forth, but Murphy finds his focus being drawn back to the fire. He can’t quite explain it, but there’s something about it that keeps calling to him, beckoning him forwards. The fire that he’s so used to feeling in his blood seems to extend out to the blaze in front of him. He can feel both, as if they’re both directly connected to his very soul, and he wonders if the sense of peace he’s been feeling since he arrived is not due to the beauty of the garden, but rather because of his newfound connection to the fire. It's comforting, almost, to finally not be the most destructive thing around.

For, just below all that peace and containment, there’s a sense of wildness, too, and ferocity. The fire, he can tell, wants nothing more than to break free of its invisible chains.  _ Set me free,  _ it screams in his mind,  _ and take my power for your own.  _ Though he knows the destruction it would cause, there’s a small part of him that’s tempted to do just that. 

“Murphy?” someone says, and he snaps back to the conversation, realizing that they’re all now staring at him. 

Awkwardly, he clears his throat. “Um, hi,” he says. “Sorry, I was just-”

“You’re a child of Hephaestus, are you not?” Lexa asks, giving him a slight nod of her head in greeting. “It is no wonder you are drawn to the garden’s hearth.”

“The - what?”

Behind Lexa, one of the Hesperides rolls her eyes. “He’s got fire magic, and he doesn’t even know what a hearth is?”

“Echo, be nice,” Lexa says, and then she looks back at him. “Do you know the story of the hearth of Olympus?”

“Of course,” he says, nodding. “The hearth on Mount Olympus represents the strength of the gods. When the gods are at their strongest, it burns the brightest, and if it were ever extinguished, the gods would be powerless - which is why someone is always guarding it.”

Lexa nods. “Precisely. This hearth is similar to that, in that if it were ever to break free of its containment or be snuffed out, then the garden would die. This is why one of us must always tend to it to keep it lit and contain its energy, as my sister Anya is doing now.” It explains, at least, why one of the Hesperides is always standing still by the fire. They aren't merely looking at it - they're using magic to keep its power at bay while also making sure the flames don’t die out, and it takes all their focus to do so.

He thinks this over before replying. “What’s the purpose of that, though?” he asks. “Wasn’t the garden built by the gods to protect the golden apples? Why would they include a weakness like that?”

“The golden apples have immense magical gifts,” Lexa says, “as I’m sure you know. The garden itself is imbued with that strength - but all strengths must have a weakness. Because our power is great, so too is our potential destruction. The universe must always be in balance.”

Murphy fights the urge to laugh. The quest cycle, the very thing that resulted in his curse, was also supposedly to keep the universe in balance. He suspects the gods merely thought it would be amusing, to task the sisters with containing the fire for all eternity, though he doesn’t say this aloud. “It is a powerful fire,” he agrees. “I can feel it.”

“Of course you can,” she replies. “You’ve been keeping your own fire in containment for thousands of years, correct? It only makes sense that you would be drawn to do the same here.”

He shrugs, not disagreeing with her, though he’d never thought of it that way. "Maybe," he says, "or maybe I'm drawn to do the opposite."

Lexa smiles, almost amused by this answer. After a pause, she bows her head formally at him. "Forgive me," she says. "We did not properly greet you. I am Lexa, daughter of Nyx. These are my sisters, Anya, Echo, and Luna. Clarke has given us your name, but tell us this - what may we do for you, Murphy?"

He hesitates, noting the way the two Hesperides behind Lexa are flaring at him. “Thank you,” he says, finally. “I don’t know if Clarke mentioned this too, but - I am on a quest. And I don’t want to overstay my welcome here.”

“You already have,” one of the Hesperides, Echo, says. 

Murphy bites his tongue, knowing that one slip could ruin his chance forever. “I’ll be blunt with you,” he says. “I’m in need of one of the golden apples from that tree.”

“I suspected as much,” Lexa says. She pauses to think for a moment, and then simply nods. “Fine. Clarke trusts you - this is enough to earn you a chance. We will permit you to take one apple with you.”

“Sister,” Luna says, speaking for the first time since his arrival, “I beg of you to think this through more carefully. A mere demigod could wreak havoc with one of our apples in his possession. The destruction he could bring would be on a scale we have not seen for centuries.” Despite the harshness of her words, she’s gentle in her tone, and she looks somewhat apologetically at him afterwards. 

“I understand the cause for concern, Luna,” Lexa replies, “but there is one thing he must do first.”

Murphy waits for her to tell him, but it seems she’s waiting for dramatic effect. “What do I have to do?”

She smiles. “You are a child of fire,” she says, “and as we previously discussed, I know that our hearth calls out to you. Even now, I would guess it is appealing to your strength, begging you to set it free. Am I wrong?”

If he focuses, he thinks he can hear a small voice in his head, coming from the fire, yelling at him to pay attention to it. “I can,” he admits. 

“I thought as much,” she says. “It’s difficult work, keeping a force such as this at bay for a great amount of time. We spread the work evenly amongst ourselves, and we make sure that one of us is never guarding it for longer than a few hours at a time.”

“I’m sorry - I don’t understand what this has to do with me or my request.”

Lexa laughs, softly. “You are half mortal, Murphy, and mortals are the most destructive beings in this world. I need to know that you have the strength to keep your own calamitous tendencies at bay before I give you a golden apple. I need you to prove your resolve, so that I know you will not return to the mortal world and use our gift for selfish gain.”

His whole quest, he thinks, is due to his own selfishness, but he doesn’t say this to her. “What do I have to do to prove it to you?”

“Tonight, from sunset until the start of sunrise, you must do what we do - and contain the fire of our hearth, all by yourself.”

He blinks, stunned. “For - For the whole night?”

She nods. “If you let even an ember loose,” she says, “we will know - and we will be forced to end your life. We cannot allow a reckless soul to return to the mortal world, not when you know our location. Surely you understand.”

Murphy swallows, then breathes out shakily. He glances over at the tall flames, taking in their majesty and sheer power. He’s always been able to let his own fire loose, but never has he truly excelled at keeping it in, not to the level that the Hesperides clearly want him to. The memory of the cottage from the previous day comes back into his mind, and he remembers the wall of fire he created, how hot and bright it burned and how it was able to keep even the  _ arei _ away. He’s powerful - he knows that, but he doesn’t think he’s capable of what Lexa’s asking. All his focus and concentration will have to go to this task, and while he could maybe do it for a few minutes, doing it for an entire night is something else. Even Lexa had admitted that the Hesperides didn’t guard the flames for more than a few hours. 

But then, as he often does, he thinks of Bellamy. He probably hasn’t even left America, not yet, but he’s out there, locked in an endless hunt. He’s out there, and he’s suffering, and Murphy’s closer than ever before to freeing him from that. If this is the only thing in between him and one of the golden apples, then - he can do that. For the both of them, he  _ will _ do that. 

“Alright,” he says. “I can do it.”

Lexa smiles. “For your sake,” she says, “I certainly hope that’s true.”

* * *

Time works differently in the garden of the Hesperides - or, so they tell him. 

He knows that he came in as the sun was rising out in the world, yet it looked closer to noon at the time of his and Clarke’s arrival. Murphy would have asked if it was that the garden didn’t match up with the world outside, or if the world outside didn’t match up with the garden, but his mind is now occupied with far greater tasks. 

“There’s about two hours left until sunset,” Clarke tells him. “I don’t know how time works here, either. Some days seem to go on forever - and some pass in the blink of an eye.”

“I guess you can have some fun with things like that, when you have all the magic in the world at your disposal,” Murphy sighs. The Hesperides are somewhere within the tall black gates, no doubt still arguing over Lexa’s decision to test him, but they’re long out of earshot. He knows that Clarke could have stayed with them, having gained their favour through her relationship with Lexa, but instead she’d stayed with him and sat by the pond. For that, he’s grateful. They’re sitting next to each other by the pond they entered the garden through, both their feet dipping into the icy water. For a few silent moments, he amuses himself by submerging his foot, and then pulling it out to see that it’s completely dry. 

Clarke bites her lip, staring up at the sky. “I know Lexa can seem harsh,” she says, “but you have to understand - her duty is very important to her. She protects her sisters and their home, above all else.”

“She doesn’t know me,” he says. “I get where she’s coming from.”

“You do?”

“Yeah,” he says, softly. The water shimmers under the light of the sun, and though he isn’t sure if the sun is real or just a magical illusion, it still is beautiful. “My quest - it comes before everything else. Maybe that’s selfish, I don’t know, but it’s the truth.”

She pauses. “I don’t think it’s selfish,” she says. “If anything, it’s honourable.”

“It’s gotten people that I love killed,” he fires back. “There’s no honour in that.”

Clarke turns to him, then, but he can’t find it in himself to match her gaze. “You didn’t kill Raven or Emori,” she says, softly, like it’s the simplest fact in the world. 

“They’d still be alive if I hadn’t summoned Emori and gone to their safehouse. Nyx wanted me, not them.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” she says, “but if you hadn’t summoned Emori, then Bellamy would have killed you, right? That’s how this works?”

_ You missed,  _ he’d said to Bellamy, back in that bar in the middle of nowhere, but he knows that there are only so many times he’ll fail to find his target. “Maybe.”

“And then you’d both be dead,” she concludes. 

“That’d be easier,” he says, still staring out at the water. His tone is coming across as flippant, but there’s a part of him that means what he’s saying. Who is he, after all, to decide a godly curse is worth breaking?

Clarke huffs. “Well,” she says, “there’s no honour in that, now is there?”

“Touché,” he whispers. She  _ is _ right, though he hates to admit it. He’s been doing this for two thousand years. Surely, he reconciles, it’s only natural to doubt himself once in a while, but he knows he’s doing this for Bellamy, and not himself. As long as Bellamy gets a happy ending, after all these years of suffering for him, he doesn’t care what happens to him. He truly doesn’t.

Stillness descends over the garden once again. After a moment, he slides his bag off his shoulder and puts it in his lap, gently opening the drawstring. He reaches in slowly, his feeling the items before finding the one he wants. Clarke stares at him and hums softly as he pulls it out, placing the bag with everything else still inside next to him. 

Murphy’s hands shake as he opens up the glass container, filled almost to the brim with brilliant purple crocus flowers. He’d intended to do this all in one fluid motion, but now that he’s sitting with the flowers exposed to the wind, it’s suddenly much harder to let them go. Instead, he looks at his own reflection in the pond, blinking past the tears that threaten to obscure his vision. If he looks hard enough, and at just the right place, he thinks he sees Raven and Emori right next to him, both of them completely at ease, smiles on their faces. 

“They would have loved it here, you know,” he says, softly. 

“There are worse honeymoon spots,” Clarke agrees, and then she grows far more serious as she continues, “They  _ are _ here, you know. They’re with you, wherever you go.”

He knows. It’s not what she meant, but he’ll be carrying the weight of their deaths for as long as he lives. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s just - they had a whole ahead of them, you know? They  _ just _ got married, Clarke. It’s not fair.”

“No,” she says, “it’s not.” He’s thankful she doesn’t try to change his mind. 

Murphy lets out a breath, looking up at the brilliant green garden all around him. He can see it, if he tries hard enough - the life that they never got to live. He can see them lying in the grass, picking flowers for each other, and dancing the night away. He can see them laughing, at peace together, and if he really focuses, he can see them sitting by this very pond on either side of him, silently encouraging him as they always did. 

He remembers, vaguely, an old saying he’d heard in the ancient times to honour the dead. Back then, the people had been strict about funerals and their customs surrounding death. Murphy had always found it trivial and silly, but Raven, he recalls, had a certain fondness for it. 

_ “None of this changes anything,” he’d said to her, two thousand years ago. They’d been walking through a quaint village when a funeral had begun, and Raven had convinced him to stop with her to pay their respects, even though they didn’t know the person that had died.  _

_ “It’s the symbolism, Murphy,” she’d said. “It’s about appreciating the life that someone lived - and finding peace and closure in their death.” _

_ “You’re too idealistic for me.” _

_ She’d laughed, and oh, how he’d loved hearing her laugh. “One day, you’ll agree with me,” she’d said. “Just you wait.” _

Now, as he sat at the edge of the pond, he thinks he understands what she meant. “In peace,” he whispers, doing his best to quell his shaking hands as he held the flowers, “may you leave the shore.”

Clarke’s eyes widen as she recognizes the ancient blessing, obviously surprised to hear it after it had fallen out of favour a thousand or so years ago, but she speaks the next line, anyways. “In love, may you find the next.”

“Safe passage on your travels until our final journey to the ground,” he says. “May we meet again.” With this, he grabs a handful of the flowers and then gently throws them into the wind. They fly through the air, for only a second, before landing softly on the surface of the water, floating away. 

“That was very sweet,” Clarke says. “I think they’d appreciate it.”

“I hope so,” he says. The two of them sit in silence by the pond, watching the flowers drift across the water. Some of them eventually start to sink, but he knows that even if they’re sitting at the bottom of the pond, their beauty will last. 

Raven and Emori deserved to spend a thousand more years together. He knows this to be true, and he knows that they gave this up for him, and he knows that he owes it to them to make the time they gave him count. Slowly, above them the sun starts to set, and Murphy hopes with every fiber of his being that their sacrifice will not be in vain. 

* * *

The Hesperides are waiting for him as he enters the gated section of the garden once again. A faint orange glow descends over the lush foliage, the grand fire picking up the slack from the setting sun. Anya is still tending to the hearth, though she’s growing visibly tired, and the flames are beginning to stretch higher, aching to jump out of her hold. 

“Murphy,” Lexa says in greeting, bowing slightly. Luna does the same, and then nudges Echo to bow as well. The latter sighs dramatically, but then mimics her sisters. He notices, now that they’re standing in front of him, all of their long gowns have changed colour. Where once they all wore varying colours, they are now all dressed in a regal white. Over by the fire, Anya’s is now a bright red, as if copying the blaze itself. There’s magic imbued in every fiber of their beings, he realizes - even their clothes. 

“Hi,” he says, doing his best to breathe deeply, despite the momentous task in front of him. 

“Your task,” she continues, “is to keep our garden’s hearth contained, but alight, until the start of sunrise. Should you fail-”

“I die,” he finishes for her. 

Lexa nods, though to her credit, she doesn’t look happy about it. “That is the way it must be,” she says. “Remember - we will know if even an ember falls out of containment.” 

He glances back at the fire, a pit of dread curling in his stomach. “Sure thing,” he says, mocking confidence to the best of his ability. The tree of golden apples is right there, within his grasp. He can’t give it up now. Gesturing over to Anya, he continues, “So, how do I do this? Just go over there and take it from her?”

“When you are ready, merely tap her on the shoulder and she will give control to you,” Lexa tells him. “The rest of us will take our leave for the night.” He suspects, though they’re physically leaving the clearing, they’ll be perfectly aware of what goes on for the rest of the night. 

“Can’t wait to see you burn the place down,” Echo sighs, briskly pushing past her sisters and then walking out of the clearing, towards the gate. Out of any of them, she reminds him the most of their mother. 

Luna steps forwards more gently, giving him a warm smile. Though she says nothing to him as she departs, he’s slightly comforted by the kindness in her eyes. Lexa waits for her to leave before she turns back to him. 

“Remember,” she says, “you must do this until the start of sunrise.”

“The start of sunrise, I get it,” he repeats. “What is it with you all and sunrises, huh?”

She chuckles. “Did you know that some of the gods call us the nymphs of the evening light?”

Murphy shrugs. “I’d heard that,” he says, “and I saw your gate inscription, ‘by the light of the sun.’”

“The sunset and sunrise are not as different as you would believe,” she says. “It is the point between two worlds - between an end and a beginning. It is the point at which the world is at its weakest, most vulnerable, and as a result, we are at our strongest.”

“I don’t think there’s anything weak about a sunrise,” he says, softly. 

She smiles. “Nor do I,” she replies, and then, “I have heard many stories of demigods over the years, Murphy, though I have never met one before. None have ever found our garden, not like you.”

It’s the most guarded location in the world, he knows, but he’s surprised to learn he’s the only one to ever make it inside. “I’m guessing the stories don’t paint us in a great light,” he guesses. 

“They don’t,” she agrees, “though I suspect that’s more the gods’ doing.”

“Most things are.”

She hums. “You are more human than I would have expected,” she continues, “in that you are aware of your limitations. The gods could never possess a strength such as that.”

Truthfully, Murphy’s not sure what to say to that sentiment, so he says nothing at all for a while. “Clarke speaks highly of you,” he says, finally. “She was staying at a safehouse so as not to lead anyone dangerous to you. I just think you should know, she really cares about you.”

“I care for her,” Lexa replies, softly. “She did not lead any of the gods here, this is true, but she did bring you. Am I to understand that you are not dangerous?”

He thinks she’s joking, but it’s hard for him to laugh. “I am in more danger just being here,” he says, “than any of you are by being in my presence.”

“Is that so?”

“I’m guessing Clarke neglected to mention that I’m being hunted by your mother, then.”

Lexa pauses. “You’re the one that broke the questing cycle, then?”

“That’s me.”

She nods. “My mother holds a grudge,” she says. “I presume that you need a golden apple so that you can be free of her anger?”

“I do.”

They had both been staring into the fire, but now, Lexa turns to him, completely serious. “If that is the case,” she says, “then I sincerely hope that tonight, you are successful.” 

His eyes widen, but he regains his composure and nods. “So do I.”

“Good luck, Murphy,” she says with a sigh, and it’s clear that though she wants him to succeed, and maybe even likes him just a bit, she doesn’t think he can do it. That’s okay - he doesn’t think he can, either. With this and a nod, she turns and walks the cobblestone path back towards the gate, leaving him and Anya alone with the blaze. 

Night has now taken hold, and he knows that if he doesn’t start the test soon, he’ll be failed for his hesitation. He swallows as much of his fear as he can, and then slowly walks towards and around the fire until he’s standing right next to Anya, who doesn’t even seem to notice he’s there. Now that the sun has set, the flames stretch higher, reaching past his own height and arching towards the pitch black sky. 

It would be beautiful, he thinks, if it weren’t so terrifying. 

“I got this,” he whispers, though he fails to convince himself of anything. Still, he reaches forwards, lightly tapping Anya on the shoulder to signal that he’s ready. For a moment, she remains still, and then she nods, and begins passing control of the fire to him. 

Murphy takes it. Anya leaves him, wordlessly. He’s alone, in a pitch black clearing, a great blaze in front of him and though it’s only been a few seconds - he most decidedly does  _ not _ have this. 


	6. six.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine.  
> I couldn't get the boy to kill me,  
> but I wore his jacket for the longest time."

**Then-;**

“Oh, Bellamy,” Murphy whispered, staggering backwards away from the corpse of the oracle that lay in front of him, an arrow stuck fast in his skull. “What have you  _ done?”  _

Bellamy slowly lowered the bow, brow knit in confusion. “I ended it,” he said. “I took the power away from the gods, and more importantly, I  _ saved  _ you!”

Murphy turned to him, shaking his head, the desperation of the moment building in his chest. “No,” he said, “you think they’re just going to let this slide? You just killed an  _ oracle,  _ Bell, I don’t even - the consequences for that are immeasurable!”

“Good.”

“No!” he cried, throwing his arms out wildly to the side. “This is not good at all! I didn’t hear my quest.”

Still, Bellamy wasn’t following him. “Good!”

“You might have just destroyed the questing cycle,” Murphy realized with a whisper, letting out a choked breath. The oracle knew his quest, but hadn’t been able to tell him, meaning that though Murphy should be the quest bearer, he technically wasn’t. He, and no doubt the cycle itself, were now caught in limbo, and the gods would not be happy about that. 

“Don’t you see?” Bellamy cried. He was still standing halfway across the clearing, and though Murphy wanted nothing more than to run to him and lead him to safety, away from the caves, he felt like he couldn’t move. “I saved you. I gave us a chance at a life together.”

Murphy went quiet, the reality sinking in. He didn’t know if the quest cycle was recoverable. He didn’t know if another oracle would simply appear now that this one had fallen, or if the simple act of murdering one before their time meant there would be no more oracles past this point. He didn’t know what he was meant to do - he didn’t think there was anything he  _ could  _ do. 

“No,” he whispered, “you’ve doomed us.”

Bellamy was about to fire back and keep arguing with him, when a sudden chill descended over the clearing. A cloud rolled in front of the sun and Murphy knew, without hesitation, what was about to happen. He glanced over at Bellamy, his own fear reflected in his eyes, and he wished he had time to save him from this - but he knew that he didn’t. 

A second later, Nyx stepped into the clearing. The smoky tendrils that drifted up and down from her silhouette swirled angrily around her and where before she had flickered in the sunlight, she now stood strong and formidable, a fiery fury etched onto her face. Her gaze immediately landed on the oracle’s body, and then locked in on Murphy’s own. “I should have known you’d do something this barbaric,” she snapped. “You spent too long with the mortals. You’ve become so much like them.”

For a moment, he thought he could get away with that version of the story, that he was the one to murder the oracle and Bellamy had nothing to do with it - but he was still holding the bow, and Bellamy didn’t know how not to be brave. “I did it,” he called out, drawing Nyx’s attention with his words. “I killed the oracle.”

Nyx looked at him, for a moment, before she threw her head back into a laugh. “Nice try,” she said, “but a mortal would never defy the gods, not like this.”

“I did,” Bellamy continued, purposefully ignoring the silent plea to stop in Murphy’s eyes. “I wanted to destroy your stupid questing cycle, and I’ve done just that.”

There was silence, and then Nyx’s eyes widened, the first time the goddess had displayed genuine vulnerability. “Tell me,” she snapped at Murphy, “that you received your quest before the oracle’s death.”

He wished, in that moment, that he had. “I didn’t.”

“He - was he about to tell you?”

“Yes,” Murphy replied, sadly. “He was.”

Nyx was silenced, by this, and then she shook her head, harshly. “Oh, you mortal fool,” she whispered. “You absolute  _ idiot.  _ Do you realize what you’ve done?”

“I beat you,” Bellamy snapped. “That’s what I’ve done.”

Murphy’s breath hitched, but thankfully, Nyx didn’t strike him down there and then. Instead, her features twisted into a snarl and her voice went very, very low. “The questing cycle is one, continuous, fluid motion,” she said, slowly, “and you’ve broken it. You’ve broken it completely in half. You’ve taken a piece of the universe, put here so carefully by Zeus itself, and you’ve snapped it in two like an insolent  _ fool _ !” 

Somehow, despite the very angry goddess that was right in front of him, Bellamy’s confidence never wavered. “It looks like your questing cycle was pretty weak to begin with then, huh?” he said. “You know - if a simple mortal like me could break it with one arrow.”

Murphy was still standing close to the cave entrance, by the oracle’s body, and though Nyx stood in between him and his love he stared at Bellamy with pure adoration. He knew that there was no way they were leaving this alive, especially not with Bellamy making the situation worse, but - the fact that he had enough courage to stand against a goddess for what he believed in was inspiring. He’d always been brave, but in that moment, Murphy was reminded why it was that he fell in love with him in the first place. 

Nyx, however, was less than impressed. “I see,” she said. “So this was not an act of love or desperation, as I had believed - you wanted to make me look like a fool.”

“I didn’t,” Bellamy said, “but that’s an added bonus.”

She narrowed her eyes, but paused, thinking his words over. Murphy took this as his chance to jump in and do his best to convince her, even though he knew the attempt was futile. “The questing cycle will continue upon my death, right?” he called out. “I will make that sacrifice if it will restore order to the universe and make up for what Bellamy did.”

“It will,” Nyx said, though she didn’t even bother looking at him as she spoke. “As it goes, if you die, the next oracle will be chosen and the cycle will carry on to the next demigod.”

“Then kill me,” he said. He locked eyes with Bellamy for only a second, trying his hardest to ignore the look of pure horror and betrayal being thrown his way. 

Nyx paused, and it looked for a moment as if she was going to do just that, but then her lips curled into a wicked smile. The air in the clearing turned cold as she chuckled, softly, and the sun grew even dimmer above them. 

She turned, slightly, so that she was facing both of them. “You will die,” she said, “but it will not be by my hand. That would be  _ far _ too easy.”

Bellamy raised his bow, nocking an arrow from his quiver in one fluid motion. He was seconds away from firing at Nyx, even though it had no chance in harming her. Murphy was about to call out, to tell him not to in fear of worsening his own punishment, but then he found that he couldn’t. His anxiety rose as he tried to open his mouth, to say anything at all, but nothing happened. None of his muscles were responding to him - he couldn’t move at all. He could barely even breathe. Across the clearing, Bellamy too seemed to be locked in place, his bow raised but the arrow never firing. 

Murphy took a breath, unable to do much of anything else, and then in a desperate attempt, he focused inwards. Normally, the fire in his blood was constantly burning, and as soon as he focused on it, it would take control and his hands would catch alight. Normally, he spent every waking hour containing it, locked in an endless battle with it for dominance, because he knew that the second he relinquished even an ounce of control it would burst outwards and destroy everything he could. He could summon it when he wanted to, sure, but he’d never been able to master it, his human half no doubt stopping him from perfecting his skill. 

He tried to call upon his fire, to free all of it and burn the clearing down and maybe,  _ maybe  _ give them a chance, but - nothing answered his call. His breath hitched as he tried to focus harder, but still, he was met with nothing. For the first time in his life, his blood ran cold. There was no fire within his veins. His magic had been frozen, just like his movement, and though it had never done anything for him aside from leaving destruction in his wake, without it he felt well and truly empty. 

Nyx looked back and forth between the two of them, her laughter increasing as she did so. Murphy was sure that to her, they looked as mice would look to them - after all, she had stolen their power and autonomy in mere seconds, without even uttering a single word. He could do nothing but stare at the cackling goddess and Bellamy’s frozen figure, whose own fear was evident in his eyes. Bellamy was braver than anyone he had ever known, but he’d always feared being helpless. 

After what seemed like hours, Nyx stopped laughing and straightened her back, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder. “You both have been nothing but thorns in my side,” she sighed, “and truly, I should leave you here to rot.”

_ Please do,  _ Murphy thought. They may have been unable to speak, but if she left them there, at least she would leave them there together until the earth claimed them. There were worse ways to live out eternity. 

“That, though, would not be very fun for me,” she continued, clicking her tongue. “It seems to  _ me _ that you have forgotten who I am. I was made from pure chaos. I am more powerful than your tiny minds can even hope to imagine. Still - if you require proof of that, I am more than happy to oblige.”

The air chilled even more. Murphy didn’t know if he was so cold because of that, or because of the absence of fire in his blood.  _ Just kill me,  _ he wanted so desperately to say, but he could not fight through his invisible chains.  _ Let him live. Please, let him live.  _

“For your crimes committed here today,” Nyx said, “I curse you both to an endless hunt. You, Bellamy Blake, will do nothing but chase and hunt this demigod, Jonathan Murphy. Your only thought will be of the hunt, and you will never be able to rest until you find him, wherever he is in the world, and you kill him.”

Murphy tried to scream. He tried to run at her and take her down. He tried to throw the arrow currently lodged in the oracle’s skull at her. He tried to do anything and everything to piece back together his whole world that had just shattered, but in the end, Murphy did nothing at all. 

“Oh, but I’m not done yet,” Nyx said with a cruel smile, only smiling wider when she took in their fear. “Bellamy - you must partake in this hunt with no outside help from anyone, or anything. You are not allowed to have company, or travel in a group, or have contact with anyone from your old life. The  _ only _ actions you are allowed to take must be to further your progress in the hunt, and you will do whatever you have to during this chase to complete your goal.”

_ Please stop,  _ Murphy wailed, though he stayed completely silent. 

“And you, Murphy, oh - it is such a pity you did not inherit immortality from your father, isn’t it?” she said, laughing. “Let’s change that, shall we? You, from this point on, will be just as immortal as a god would be. Though you can, of course, be killed, it cannot be from your own doing.”

She looked between them both, still laughing to herself. “If one of you should die,” she finished, “whether it be by each other’s hand, or from another means, the survivor is cursed to roam the earth,  _ alone _ , never once stopping until death takes you. Have I made myself clear?”

He couldn’t move, though he suspected if he could, he would have fallen to his knees in silent agony.  _ Not him,  _ Murphy kept thinking, over and over again.  _ Do anything to me, but not to him.  _

Nyx snapped her fingers, and then silently, two of the dark, smoky tendrils that had been circling her figure rose into the air, one of them flying towards Bellamy, and one coming to Murphy. “These are two of my  _ arei _ ,” she said. “Don’t worry - they’ll treat you well.”

The two dark clouds spun through the air, flying with a flourish. Murphy focused on the one coming towards him and though he was frozen to the spot, he braced himself the best he could as it darted towards him, making contact with his skin. It dove right into his chest, close to his heart, and didn’t come back out. Though it left no mark of its entry, and he had barely felt a thing, he knew that it was inside him - and he knew that meant the curse had now taken hold. 

“I’ll tell you what,” Nyx said, “I’ll give you a head start, hmm?” She looked over at Murphy, and as soon as her eyes made contact with his, the fire rushed back through his blood and her invisible hold of him broke. He staggered forwards, both from the suddenness of the freedom, and from the weight of what she’d just done to them. 

“Please,” he whispered, his thoughts running a million miles an hour as he tried to center himself and come up with a solution to this. “Just kill me. Please, let him live. I don’t care what you do to me, I don’t.”

Nyx rolled her eyes. “Better get moving,” she said. “He’s not going to be frozen for much longer.”

Bellamy stood still as ever, his grip of the bow firm. His eyes were still filled with fear, and if Murphy looked hard enough, he could see a single tear fall down his cheek. “If you won’t do it,” he snapped, “I’ll do it myself.” 

He reached down, harshly pulling the arrow out of the oracle’s skull. It was coated with a dead man’s blood but he didn’t care about that, not as he turned it around and lined it up with his own heart, pushing it towards himself with all his might. The questing cycle was nothing more than a demigod torture cycle, but if restoring it meant that this would all end and Bellamy could be free, then he’d do that in a heartbeat. 

The arrow hit the surface of his skin, and then bounced right off it as though he were made of stone. With horror, he looked up at Nyx, who only looked amused. “Are you forgetting what I just said?” she asked with a smirk. “You can’t kill yourself - and even if you could, if you die, he wanders the earth alone for the rest of his life. Do you want to do that to him?”

“You did this,” he said. “This - it’s not fair. This is not fair to him.”

“No,” she said, “it’s not.” 

With that, she looked over at him, and by the slight tremble of his limbs, Murphy could tell she’d freed him of her hold as well. There was a second where he stayed still, pure terror in his eyes and his notched arrow pointed right at Nyx’s head, but then the curse took him in its grip. Bellamy’s eyes grew cold and calculating. There was no emotion on his face, but his back straightened and his shoulders lowered as he took the perfect stance of an archer. 

Without a word, he turned the bow so that the arrow no longer aligned with Nyx’s head, but rather, Murphy’s own. “Bell, please,” he whispered, staring death in the face. “Don’t do this.” He said this as if he had any choice in the matter, but there was still a small piece of Murphy that hoped he could resist the curse. 

An arrow flew past his head, nicking the side of his ear as it went. A small trickle of warm blood ran down from the wound and Murphy’s eyes widened, watching as Bellamy grabbed another arrow from his quiver and got ready to fire again. 

“I thought you were the man who never missed, or whatever,” Nyx said, clearly unimpressed. “Well, no matter. There will be plenty of times to try again.”

There were very few choices in front of Murphy. He could stay and plead with his lover, but he knew that wouldn’t work, because as lovely as the sentiment was, no words were more powerful than a goddess’ curse. He could release his fire and burn the clearing down, but he knew he’d never be able to, not when Bellamy was in it - there was no way, no matter what he did to him, that Murphy would be able to harm him. 

Only once choice remained. With tears pricking at his eyes and blood dripping down his neck, Murphy turned around and ran. Behind him, Nyx laughed and Bellamy followed, and such marked the beginning of an endless hunt. 

**Now-;**

The Hesperides’ fire, Murphy soon discovers, is really quite rude.  _ For a child of Hephaestus,  _ it says to him,  _ you’re not very good at this.  _

Murphy knows that the little voice in his head is not really from the fire itself, but rather from the magic imbued in the hearth. It will do absolutely anything to be free of the chains he’s placing on it, and if that includes taunting him over and over, then it will do so without hesitation. 

It’s hard for him to truly process or think about what he’s doing, or else he’ll start to lose control of it. He can feel every inch of the fire in front of him. It’s full of raw power, the like he’s never felt before, and it truly acts as though it has a mind of its own. Sometimes, it struggles against him to break free, and other times, it threatens to go out entirely and he’s forced to switch tactics and keep the flames burning. It’s exhausting, and the fire is always one step ahead of him. Though he keeps his focus on it, and so far his own capabilities are enough to keep it restrained, he can feel himself growing tired, and it’s only been an hour or so. 

Anya had left him, as soon as he’d taken the fire from her, and though it feels like he’s alone he has no doubt that at least one of the Hesperides is somewhere close, watching him. They’re all expecting him to fail. He’s expecting himself to fail, but still he stands, and he uses everything he can to complete the task. 

_ You’re losing control,  _ the voice says. 

“Fuck off,” he says, aloud. 

_ You’re so close to your end goal,  _ it continues, as if he hadn’t even spoken.  _ The tree is right there. What’s stopping you from unleashing my power and taking one of them for yourself? _

Murphy grimaces. The fire seems to struggle harder, and sweat beads at his brows. He’s been holding out his palms towards the flames, trying to ground it within himself, and now his hands begin to shake. “It’s not that simple,” he says. 

_ Isn’t it? I could help you, you know. I could burn it all. You wouldn’t even have to break a sweat - not like now.  _

He knows he’s not speaking to a real person. At best, he’s talking to a fragment of a spell, but it almost helps his concentration to engage in the conversation rather than try to ignore it. “I’m not cruel.”

_ Aren’t you? Are you not the reason that Bellamy is suffering? Are you not the reason for Raven’s death, and for Emori’s? Are these things not cruel?  _

He bites his lip, hard, so much so that he draws blood. “I’ll do whatever it takes to fix my mistakes,” he snaps, “including beating you, tonight.”

The fire crackles menacingly.  _ Why are you so focused on ‘beating’ me? Do I scare you? _

Murphy doesn’t reply, but the truth is that yes - it does. He’s always been terrified of fire, even his own, merely because he knows what it can. He knows what it can destroy. He knows that if given the chance, it would burn him to ash in seconds. Fire, and especially the one burning in the hearth in front of him, has a wicked mind of its own. It has a mind of its own. It is a force to be reckoned with, and it takes what it wants whenever it wants. By all accounts, fire is much like a living, breathing thing, but then again, so is he. 

_ Do I scare you?  _ The voice repeats this, much quieter than before. His stomach twists and his breath shakes as he realizes that the voice he has been speaking to does not belong to the fire - it’s his own. 

“Yes,” he tells himself. “You always have.”

Lexa had told him before that he was more human than she had been expecting, but only now does he think he understands what she meant. He’s only half-mortal, but he’s beginning to realize that for all of his thousands of years of life, he’s held on far more tightly to his human side than his godly one. Murphy’s done absolutely everything to be as mortal as possible, ignoring his other half as often as he could, but as he stares into the flames, he thinks this was a mistake. 

His whole life, he had thought himself to be forged from fire, a byproduct of the most destructive force on the planet. He viewed his magic as something that had to be contained, and pushed to the side, but - fire is nothing more than a living, breathing being, and so is he. There are no differences there. He breathes, and he lives, and in front of him, the fire does the same. As he takes a breath in, the flames sink, ever so slightly, and as he exhales they extend upwards, pushing out and up towards the night sky. 

All along, he thought he was forged from fire, but this is not the case. Murphy’s not made from fire - he  _ is _ fire. 

_ Do I scare you?  _ he asks himself, and the truth is that yes, his godly half has always terrified him,  _ but _ \- maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. 

A feeling of peace washes over him as he begins to understand this for the first time, and his breath steadies. The shaking in his limbs subsides and though he keeps his focus steady, the exhaustion in his bones fades until he’s standing tall once again. As he extends his mind towards the blaze, he registers every piece of the flames as if he were a part of them, and he thinks in a sense, he is. 

Murphy breathes in, then out, and then on a whim, he walks forwards into the flames. 

The fire burns all around him, but it does not touch his skin. He stands in the middle of a force that by every right, and by everything he knows, should reduce him to ash, and yet, he stands tall, breathing just fine. This should be the biggest mistake of his life, yet - it feels like coming home. 

He’s had this power inside him, all along, and he never knew. This is enough to make him laugh out loud and he throws his head back, the fire twisting around and laughing right along with him. He raises his arms out to the side, and on his command, the fire halves itself, manipulating itself into shapes that should not be possible. 

Olympus cast him out. His godly father wants nothing to do with him. A goddess is the reason for all his pain and suffering,  _ but,  _ none of these reasons are good enough to limit himself over. As he stands amidst a world of fire, Murphy laments only that he didn’t realize this sooner. 

He slowly steps back out of the fire, back to the grass of the garden. Above him, the sun is just starting to creep up and into the sky. Murphy swears that he was only at one with the flames for a few seconds, but it seems the whole night has passed him by, and not once did the fire break free of his control. Still feeling the rush of adrenaline from the moment, he twists his wrist to the right, watching as the fire twists in on itself to copy him. No matter what he gets it to do, it will not break free, because he doesn’t want it to. He knows this with absolutely certainty. 

The sun creeps higher in the sky, signalling the start of sunrise. With change of night into day, his strength only grows, and he thinks he understands what Lexa meant when she had told him this is when the Hesperides’ magic is at its strongest. The same, he thinks, can be said for his own. 

In the distance, he hears the gate open and several footsteps approach him. “You’re in one piece,” Echo says, the first Hesperide to enter the clearing. She doesn’t look impressed by him, but she does seem slightly less annoyed than she had the previous day. “How interesting.”

He nods, watching as the other Hesperides and Clarke enter the clearing. Their gowns are all different hues of yellow and orange, matching the sunrise. Lexa approaches him, approval clearly on her face. “We watched you in the beginnings of the night,” she says, “but as time went on, it became clear we didn’t have to.”

“Thank you,” he says. “I think I understand why you had me do this.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I do not know what you are talking about.”

Murphy can’t tell if she’s being serious or not, so he just nods. “Either way - thank you.”

Echo comes up to him. “I’ll take the fire from you,” she says. 

“If you want,” he says, with a shrug. Controlling it now is so effortless that he hadn’t even realized he had yet to pass it off. 

“I don’t want a demigod in our affairs for longer than he needs to be,” she snaps, and he raises his hands in mock surrender. He waits for her to get ready, and then slowly eases up his control until she’s the sole person keeping it contained. 

Clarke’s by his side, then, a bright smile on her face. “You did it,” she says. “Congratulations - I’m sure it was a long night.”

“It wasn’t,” he tells her, “but thank you, and thank you for leading me here, and just helping me. I owe you, Clarke, I really do.”

“No, you don’t,” she says, softly. “Let’s call it even.”

Beside him, Lexa hums. “You passed the test,” she says, “and for that, I must stay true to my word.” She walks past him and to the tree next to the hearth, reaching upwards and gently picking one of the low-hanging golden apples. His eyes widen in awe as she hands it over to him, and he clutches onto the smooth, golden surface of the fruit tighter than he has anything before. Quickly, once the initial shock wears off, he opens his bag and puts the apple inside. 

After two thousand years, he’s finally got everything he needs to break a godly curse. After two thousand years of pain and suffering, it’s all coming to an end. 

“Thank you,” he says to Lexa, taking a deep breath of relief. “When this is all over, if you ever need help from a demigod, let me know.”

“I won’t,” she promises, “but thank you, Murphy.”

He’s about to leave and not overstay his welcome any longer than he has to, when he glances at the flames one last time. Despite Echo standing right next to them and tending to them, they seem to be flickering far more wildly than they ever have before, trying to attract attention, as if they’re trying to warn him of something. A heavy sense of unease fills his chest and his eyes narrow as he stares. “Something’s wrong,” he says. 

Clarke and Lexa exchange a glance, and from the other side of the clearing, Luna and Anya appear unconvinced at his warning. “I assure you,” Lexa says, “everything is as it should be.”

_ No, it isn’t,  _ he thinks, but he’s too late to say it. A shadow leaps out of the foliage at the edge of the clearing, heading right for Echo. It moves too fast for any of them to react, and within seconds, Echo’s throat is slashed open and her body falls forwards, into the fire, her blood snuffing out the flames. 

The fire turns to ash, and then becomes nothing but smoke. The Hesperides scream. All around them, the magic keeping the garden healthy begins to die. Trees start to break and fall, flowers begin to wilt, and above them the sky crackles with impending rain. 

Bellamy stands amidst it all, a small knife covered in blood in his hand. “Hi, Murphy,” he says. “Miss me?”

“Bellamy,” Murphy whispers, “what have you done?”

The grass underneath their feet turns brown as it dies. “That’s Bellamy?” Clarke asks with horror, stumbling backwards. “ _ That’s  _ who you’re trying to save?”

Anya races towards Bellamy, shouting with anger, but it’s futile. Without a word, Bellamy throws the knife and it hits her in the throat, taking her life just as easy as he took Echo’s. Her body falls, and in front of them, the golden apples start to rot. 

“After you left me in America,” Bellamy says, slowly walking forwards and ripping the knife out of Anya’s throat, blood spraying, “Nyx found me. I thought she was finally going to kill me, but no - she told me how to find you.”

With a growing sense of horror, Murphy realizes that this is how Nyx intended to stay true to what she had told him in his dream. The  _ arei _ failed to take him out, so she sent Bellamy here to get the job done. “And you let her help you? Just like that?”

Bellamy’s eyes narrow. They’re full of nothing but betrayal and hurt, but Murphy keeps staring, desperate to see just a remnant of who he fell in love with. “It’s time to end this,” he snaps. “I need this to be over, don’t you understand? I need to be free.” With this, he raises the knife again, getting ready to throw. 

“Run!” Murphy says to those remaining, keeping his eyes focused on Bellamy. “It’s me that he wants.”

“Not without you,” Clarke snaps, grabbing hold of his arm and dragging him after her as she bolts through the dying garden, Luna and Lexa ahead of them. A knife flies past his head as he runs and Murphy knows that, once again, the man who never misses has failed to meet his target. There are only so many more times they can meet and have that be the outcome. There are, he thinks, only so many more times they can meet at all and still emerge unscathed. 

The gate’s beginning to fall over as they dash through it, dead grass falling to pieces underneath their feet. All of the flowers that had once adorned this path are now wilted and dead. Life is swiftly leaving the garden. Even the air is growing thick and toxic as they sprint. 

“How do we get out?” Murphy calls, but he does not slow down. 

“Through there!” Clarke says, and he sees now that they’re running towards a thick grove of trees. A small cave lies in the middle of them, leading out of the garden and no doubt to somewhere back on earth. Though the trees all around it are starting to fall, the cave stands strong amidst the wreckage. 

Once again, a knife spins through the air. This one flies far past him but finds its target in the back of Luna’s leg, sending her crashing to the ground. Lexa cries out, stopping to help her up, but Luna waves her off. 

“Go!” she cries, pulling the knife out herself and then, somehow, staggering to her feet. “I’ll hold him off.”

“You can’t!” Lexa yells, but Luna pushes her back and then after a brief moment, Clarke grabs her, pulling Lexa away from her sister. 

Murphy looks at her with a silent plea to come with them as he runs past, but she shakes her head, her resolve firm. He keeps moving, because he knows that he’d be useless in a fight. The fire inside him could win any battle, but he can’t let it loose here. Even after two thousand years, he can’t bring himself to harm Bellamy - not like that. 

Clarke pushes Lexa into the cave and then enters herself, turning back only to make sure that Murphy’s following. As he enters, he stops for only a second, looking back to see Bellamy drive the knife through Luna’s chest, letting out an angry howl as he stands alone in a garden, joined only by the bodies of his victims. 

He doesn’t have a choice. Murphy walks into the cave and leaves him behind. 

The cave turns out to be more like a tunnel, and it doesn’t take long to reach the other side. He emerges in the middle of a nondescript forest that could be anywhere, and though the sun is high in the sky and birds sing a gentle song in the distance, absolutely everything is wrong. 

Lexa’s on the ground, wailing, the loss of all her sisters hitting all at once. Clarke sits next to her, whispering to her gently, but even she is unable to quell her despair. The cave they’d just emerged from vanishes into thin air as he looks back at it, as if it were never there to begin with. Bellamy does not follow them - and neither does Luna. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. Clarke meets his eyes for a moment, but then looks away, tears in her own. She, too, has just lost a home, for the second time. Though she hides it, he knows that she, too, is inconsolable. 

The golden apple weighs heavy in the bag on his back. It’s not fair, he thinks, that he has what he needs at the cost of everyone else’s happiness. It’s not fair that a beautiful garden that had stood undisturbed for all eternity crumbled upon his arrival. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers again, because he has no other options in front of him. He hopes that somehow, somewhere, Bellamy can hear him. He hopes that he understands. He hopes that after all this is over, he will be able to forgive him. 

All of sins have to be worth it. All his mistakes, and all his faults, they have to mean something, in the end. Otherwise, he doesn’t know how he’ll be able to continue onwards, knowing he’s entirely at fault for the grief of the two broken girls in front of him, for the fact that Raven and Emori should be here with them but aren’t, and for Bellamy’s continued suffering, wherever he goes next. 

The fire inside him crackles, as if laughing at him. “I’m going to end this,” he tells it, and he tells himself. “I’m ending this for everyone’s sake.”

Murphy can tell that it doesn’t believe him. Truthfully, he can’t argue with it on that - he isn’t sure he believes himself, either. 

“I’m sorry,” he sighs, because apparently that is all burning boys know how to do. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise! another double chapter update! i hope you liked it :-)
> 
> you can find me on twitter@reidsnora! come say hi! and thanks again for reading this fic, i appreciate everyone doing so endlessly <3


	7. seven.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Imagine that the world is made out of love. Now imagine that it isn't.  
> Imagine a story where everything goes wrong, where everyone has their back against a wall,  
> where everyone is in pain and acting selfishly because if they don't, they'll die.  
> Imagine a story, not of good against evil, but of need against need,  
> where everyone is at cross-purposes  
> and everyone is to blame."

**Then-;**

Murphy ran through the woods, knowing that Bellamy was hot at his heels. He leapt over roots and ducked below branches as he moved faster than he ever had before. The only sound was his breath, coming short and fast, and the racing of his heartbeat in his ears. 

An arrow flew past his head, embedding itself in the trunk of a tree just a little ways in front of him. Murphy didn’t have time to think it through, but as he ran past, he reached out and pulled the arrow out, keeping it in his hand as he picked up the pace and sprinted faster. He’d been thinking solely of the need to protect himself from the oncoming threat when he grabbed the weapon, and not about the fact that the threat was Bellamy. 

Nyx, occasionally, appeared in the corner of his vision, lurking behind the trees. “Careful,” she called out, “he’s gaining on you.” Murphy didn’t know if she was truly there or if he was imagining her presence, but either way, it only made him loathe her more. 

Murphy ran, and he ran, and his heart beat faster and faster, and he didn’t know where he was going, only that he had to keep moving. He didn’t have a plan, or a goal in mind - he only knew that he had to outpace Bellamy and escape from his sightline, so as to save them both. 

It wasn’t that he wanted to survive. He wouldn’t have minded if Bellamy killed him, but - he didn’t want him to have to. He didn’t want to condemn him to a lifetime alone, forever haunted by the knowledge that he’d killed the man he loved. 

He looked back, once, only to see Bellamy gaining on him once again. For just a second, he focused on his face and his heart twisted and broke as he saw it was full of only anger and hurt. There was no love. But - there had to be. There had to be love left, somewhere deep inside of him, otherwise - 

Murphy’s foot caught on a protruding root and he tripped forwards, crashing to the ground in a heap. The arrow he’d grabbed from the tree somehow stayed in his hand. He only had time to look over his shoulder until Bellamy was skidding to a stop right in front of him, already raising his bow. 

“Wait!” Murphy cried, fully turning so that he was still sitting on the forest floor but looking up at Bellamy. “You don’t want to do this. I  _ know  _ you don’t want to do this.”

Bellamy lined the bow up with his face, anyways. “I have to,” he said, though he spoke through a clenched jaw and gritted teeth. 

“You wanted to fight the gods,” Murphy reminded him. “So do it. Fight them!”

The arrow fired. It landed on the ground, its point stuck fast into the earth, but if it had gone even an inch to the left, it would have gone right through Murphy’s skull. “You missed,” Murphy whispered, breathlessly, as Bellamy growled and nocked another arrow, the last one in his quiver. “You never miss, but - that’s three times in a row.”

“I don’t miss,” Bellamy snapped, and he let out a choked breath, his fingers curling so tightly around the bow that they turned white. He was in clear, obvious pain, and it made Murphy’s chest tight. There was nothing he could do to free him from this. 

“But you did,” Murphy said, and he stared at the arrow, knowing that Bellamy could have fired already. This all could have been over, minutes ago, yet he was still breathing. HIs eyes widened as he realized the truth of the matter. “You didn’t really miss, did you? You haven’t been aiming for me?”

Bellamy swallowed, adjusting the bow again, his eyes narrowing. “I don’t miss,” he repeated, but it sounded strained. 

Murphy could do nothing but stare up at him, silhouetted so powerfully against the sun. “It’s not over,” he whispered. “You’re still in there, aren’t you? There’s a part of you fighting this - isn’t there?”

There was a moment where the anger seemed to dissipate from Bellamy’s eyes, and as he looked down at him, he suddenly seemed much smaller. Hurt and betrayal still adorned his gaze, but underneath all that, he could see that Bellamy was terribly, terribly afraid. “I don’t want this,” he said, his voice low. It was clear that it was hard for him to speak, or focus on him, or do anything at all aside from what the curse demanded of him - yet still he stood tall, a brave mortal taking his stand against the gods at last. 

“I know,” Murphy said, softly. 

“You don’t understand,” Bellamy continued, “it’s like - even now, here, I’m forgetting. I’m forgetting who I am. I know I had a home, and a life, but I can’t remember where it was.”

Murphy’s breath hitched. “Oh, Bell,” he whispered. 

“All I can think about,” Bellamy continued, the grip on his bow tightening once again, “is  _ you.  _ I know I have to kill you. I don’t want to, but I  _ have  _ to. It’s always in my head,  _ she  _ is always in my head, and she’s yelling at me, and she’s  _ so loud! _ ”

He knew that he should be backing away, or scrambling to his feet and running towards the horizon, but Murphy didn’t want to. He didn’t want to leave him, not like this. “But you’re fighting her,” he said. “You’re winning.”

Bellamy squeezed his eyes shut, turning his head to the slide, as if silently listening to somebody that Murphy couldn’t hear. “It hurts,” he whispered, after a second, his voice cracking under the strain. “I feel like I’m being torn apart. She’s going to tear me apart, I can’t-”

In a second, it all changed. Bellamy’s eyes opened, and he looked back to the man on the ground in front of him. His hands, once trembling, now held steadily onto his weapon. Murphy looked desperately into his gaze, but - he couldn’t see any emotion at all. Nothing about Bellamy seemed like the human he had been, even moments before. He was cold, and calculating, and would do anything for the sole goal in his head. “I love you,” Murphy tried, a last desperate attempt, but it was as if Bellamy didn’t hear him at all. He pulled the bowstring back, the arrow a moment away from finding its target, and Murphy felt a part of himself die.

“I’m sorry,” Murphy whispered, and then he kicked his foot outwards, finding contact with Bellamy’s knee. He hadn’t been expecting this and he faltered, his grip on the bow loosening. The arrow didn’t fly. Before he could get a chance to right himself, Murphy leapt up and dashed through the woods. He still kept a careful grip on the arrow he’d taken from the trunk of the tree, and though he didn’t intend to use it for its purpose, it brought him an odd sense of comfort to hold. 

This time, Murphy didn’t look back as he ran, and somehow he knew that Bellamy wouldn’t catch him, not this time. Yet - it didn’t matter. He’d seen the truth behind the facade of the curse. He knew that, though Nyx had twisted him into something evil and wicked, a very scared and mortal Bellamy still lay below the surface. 

This time, Murphy had hope. He was going to fix this. He was going to find a way to undo whatever Nyx had done, and he would give Bellamy back the life that had been stolen from him - the life that he couldn’t even remember he had. 

There was always a way forwards. He knew that, because Bellamy had taught him. 

**Now-;**

Bellamy doesn’t follow them through the cave. Murphy knows that he’s still alive, based solely on the fact that he himself is not currently being forced to wander alone throughout the earth, so he must have made it out of the dying garden. He wonders if the exit changed locations each time it was used. He’s about to ask Lexa, but then he sees that she’s still crying, lamenting the loss of not only her home but all three of her sisters, and he thinks better of it. 

It’s not that Murphy doesn’t care. He does. He cares so deeply that if he thinks about what Bellamy’s done, or the carnage done to the garden that he himself is responsible for, he’ll fall to his knees and join Lexa in her wailing. The facts for him have to be simple - he’s got everything he needs to break the curse. Bellamy’s depending on him. He can’t allow himself to wait, not anymore. 

Clarke’s still next to Lexa, doing her best to comfort her about the suffocating loss. Despite the pure melancholy of the moment, it’s clear that they love each other deeply, and it’s also clear to him that they’ll be fine. They have each other, after all, and even though they’ll have to find a new home, that’s the easy part. If he had his way, he’d ask them to come with him, but - he can’t risk them both dying, and if they stay with him, the chances of that become much, much higher. 

Everyone around Murphy dies. It’s not so much a lament, rather, an indisputable fact. 

Without saying a word, he turns around and walks into the woods, leaving Clarke and Lexa behind. They say nothing to him as he leaves. He hesitates, but then he turns back for only a second, just to say a simple goodbye. Clarke hasn’t seemed to notice his departure, her attention completely focused on Lexa, but the Hesperide is staring at him. Anger and betrayal run deep in her gaze and he thinks that if he were to say anything to her, or even remain in the small clearing, she’d lunge at him and end his life in revenge for all he stole from her. 

In the end, he says nothing, his decision only further cemented by what he’s seeing. Murphy carries onwards, the haunting realization that he doesn’t actually know where on earth he is or how he’s supposed to get to his destination weighing on his shoulders. He knows he has to get to Ogygia, the island of the lost, but he doesn’t know where the nearest body of water is, let alone how to get there. 

Murphy wanders through the woods, completely alone with no direction in mind, and he wonders if maybe Bellamy is dead after all. 

* * *

Night falls before he makes it clear of the woods, but Murphy does stumble upon an abandoned campsite that he decides will make as good of a resting place as any. Carefully, he slides his drawstring bag off his shoulders, peeking inside only once to check that the glimmering golden apple is still inside. Once he’s sure he hasn’t lost anything along the way, he finds a part of the campsite that, a very long time ago, acted as a firepit. Several thick logs encircle the spot and he sits gently on one of them, starting a small fire with a wave of his hand. 

He couldn’t have done that before, he realizes as he stares in the flames. Before learning what he had while tending to the Hesperides’ hearth, he would have had to spend much longer on creating even a simple flame in front of him. Now, it feels effortless, and yet it also feels cruel. Murphy should have known this a long time ago. Someone should have taught him how to master the magic he was born with, because if they had, maybe he would have been able to do more. Maybe his friends and his sister would be alive. Maybe the fire in the Hesperides’ garden wouldn’t have been snuffed out so easily, if he had just tried a little harder. 

As the darkness settles and bright stars overtake the sky, Murphy wishes with everything he has that he could simply go back, and start over, and try just a little harder. 

It’s as he’s pondering his own existence and failures that a branch  _ snaps  _ somewhere in the shadows. He looks up slowly, expecting some kind of animal to appear. At the very worst, Nyx or some other mythical creature sent to kill him is responsible for the sound, but right now, as he sits unable to sleep and the weight of everything he and Bellamy have done hanging heavy in the air, he can’t bring himself to care. 

“You didn’t say goodbye.”

He sighs, slouching as Clarke enters the small campsite. Illuminated only by the flames, he can see now how dishevelled and exhausted she appears. Somewhere during their escape, she’d lost her shoes, and now she walks across the uneven dirt on her bare feet. She doesn’t seem to mind, instead standing close to the fire, crossing her arms and glaring at him. “Sorry,” he says, but that’s not what he’s apologizing for. 

Clarke’s eyes roll. “I don’t get you, Murphy,” she snaps. “We go through all that together, and you - you just leave?”

“I kinda figured your girlfriend didn’t exactly want me there.”

“Did you ask?”

He tears his gaze away from the fire to look her in the eye. “Did I really have to?”

She bites her lip, unable to argue with him on this point but clearly still angry. “It’s just mean,” she finally says. “You’re my friend, Murphy. I care about you.”

“I didn’t ask for that.”

“No, but you did accept my help finding the garden. I believe it was  _ you _ who said that you owed me one for that, and if that’s not the beginning of a friendship, I don’t know what is.”

Murphy pauses, the fire crackling away in the silence. “I’m pretty sure you said we were even.”

“I did,” she admits, “but then you left me alone in that clearing without saying goodbye, so, I’m taking that back.”

“Fine, Clarke,” he snaps, “what do you want from me?” He’s not actually mad at her. He’s mad at himself, more than anything, but he doesn’t know how to begin understanding that. 

She sighs, and then walks over to him, gently sitting down on the other end of the log. For a second, they both sit in silence and watch the flames, the stars burning brilliantly overhead. “I want you to let me help you,” she finally says. 

He almost laughs at this. “You already did,” he says, “and in case you forgot, that ended pretty badly for both of us.”

Clarke looks over at him, a softness in her eyes he isn’t expecting to see. “Was that your fault?” she asks. “Be honest with me. I don’t know how this thing with you and Bellamy works, so - did you lead him there? Is it your fault that he showed up?”

“Nyx sent him there to kill me,” he says, “so - yeah, it is.”

“Then it’s Nyx’s fault, is it not?”

He’s quiet for a moment. “I allowed Bellamy to get involved with my life,” he says. “I brought him into a world he never should have had to see. It’s my fault that he’s cursed, and it’s my fault that he’s in pain. I know that he’s done terrible things, I do, but how can he be held at fault for them when he wasn’t given a choice?” 

Clarke taps her fingers against the wooden surface of the log, deep in thought over his answer. “I don’t know who he was before, so I can’t lie - I don’t completely understand why you’re trying so hard to save him,” she finally says, and then after a pause continues, “But - if it were Lexa that was cursed to do horrible, unspeakable things, then I know I would stop at nothing to free her from that, no matter what she did or who she hurt.”

He knows that she’s the goddess of diplomacy, but he still wasn’t expecting her to be so understanding. “I still love him,” he admits, feeling oddly vulnerable as the fire burns on through the night. “I know that he’s a killer, but I look at him, and even now all I can remember is the person I loved, two thousand years ago.”

She nods. “He’s your soulmate.”

“He’s everything to me,” he whispers, his voice cracking only slightly. “And he’s in pain. That’s all I need to know.”

“I see.”

“I’m sorry for what happened at the garden,” he says, emotion thick in his throat as he turns his head to look at her, hoping that she truly understands the weight of his regret. “I want to tell you that I wouldn’t have gone if I had known Nyx would send him there, but the truth is I would have gone anyway. I would have done whatever it took to get that golden apple. I know that’s wrong, and I am so deeply sorry for that, but that’s the truth.” 

Murphy doesn’t know why he’s admitting all this to her. It’s like he said before - they’re barely friends. He doesn’t know a single thing about who she is, really, past the fact that she’s selfless enough to give up her first home and kind enough to allow a cursed demigod to destroy her second. She should want nothing to do with him. Even now, he doesn’t understand why it is that she came to find him at all. 

“I appreciate that honesty,” Clarke says, and somehow, she sounds sincere. “I can understand that, I think, and in the future I might be able to sympathize, but right now-”

“Right now you’re angry with me,” he finishes for her. “That’s okay, Clarke - you should be. I just ruined your home. I know the Hesperides aren’t your sisters, but I’m sure you were close with them, too. You  _ should _ be angry with me, for a very long time.”

“I am,” she agrees. “I am angry with you, but not because of what Bellamy did. I’m angry because you left, Murphy, and you don’t get to decide if you and I get closure or not. That’s not fair to me.”

He scoffs. “We’ve known each other for days,” he says, “and in that time, I’ve gotten Raven, Emori, most of the Hesperides and even the garden itself killed. Do you really want anything to do with me after all this?”

“I don’t,” she says, firmly, “and to be honest, the more you say, the more I’m regretting following you here.”

“Good,” he snaps. “I didn’t want either of you to come after me. That’s why I  _ left.”  _

“We’ve been through this already,” she says with a sigh. “Look - I think what you’re doing is brave. I do. Raven and Emori, they spoke so highly of you and they cared about you  _ so _ much, and I think I just - I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I didn’t do everything I could to help you, for their sake.”

He shifts, uncomfortable. “I’m not brave,” he says. “None of this is brave. It’s selfish.”

“Maybe,” she agrees, “but it doesn’t change the fact that you  _ are _ doing it for love, however twisted it’s become.”

“Is that enough to make a difference?”

“Yeah,” she says, “I think it is.”

Murphy sighs. “I get that you feel you owe Raven and Emori something,” he says, “Believe me - I understand that. But it’s too dangerous for you to come with me. Nyx is only going to keep sending Bellamy right to me, and you saw how ruthless he is. I can’t accept your help.”

“I didn’t say I wanted to come with you.”

“You - You didn’t?”

“No,” she says, and he thinks that if she hadn’t seen a slaughter only hours previous, she may have laughed. “But I’ll help you get where you’re going. I’ll make sure that you’re set on your way, and then - then I’ll leave you be.”

He nods, and though it’s a gesture rooted in kindness and she’s going to do what he wants her to, there’s a piece of his heart that fractures. Despite what he says, he does like Clarke. He does value her offer of friendship, even though he’s done nothing to deserve it. Murphy knows that, however amicable their separation, he’ll miss her presence. “I need to go to Ogygia,” he says. 

“The island of the lost?” she replies. “Well, that’s easy.”

Murphy scoffs. “Not exactly,” he says. “It doesn’t have a location, because you have to be completely and utterly lost to find it. I need to find a harbour, then somehow get a boat, and  _ then _ somehow become lost in the middle of the ocean.”

“No, you don’t,” Clarke says. “I’ve been there.”

He stares at her, stunned, and then shakes his head in disbelief. “How is it,” he asks, “that you’ve been  _ everywhere _ ?”

“I went there after Zeus banished me,” she says. “Just for a day. I didn’t mean to - but, as they say, I was well and truly lost, and all lost things end up at Ogygia.” 

“Okay,” he says, shrugging. “Even if you have been there, it doesn’t change the rules - you have to be lost to find it.”

“I know,” she says, and then she looks around the campsite, the stars shining in their reflections in her eyes. “Tell me - do you know where you are?”

He raises his brow. “A campsite.”

“Yeah, obviously, but do you know where in the world? What city is closest? What country are we in?”

Murphy’s eyes widen as he begins to understand her point. “I have no idea.”

She smiles, softly, even though the pain of everything is still etched into her features. “That’s perfect, then,” she says. “Lexa and I were spending the night by some kind of water. I think it’s a lake, but either way, it stretches out past the horizon, which is plenty big enough.”

“I thought Ogygia was in the ocean.”

“Ogygia is just in the water,” Clarke explains with a shrug. “It doesn’t matter what water you choose. You’re lost - that’s good enough.”

He laughs, once, the fire in front of them burning hot as ever. “I can’t believe it’s that easy,” he says. 

“You still have to swim there.”

Murphy pauses, the grin sliding off his face. “You’re kidding.”

“No,” she says. “I don’t have a boat - and unless you find the city, you’re not going to get one. By then, though, you’ll have clues about where in the world you are, and then you won’t be completely lost like you need to be.”

“Why does everything involve swimming with you?”

Clarke shrugs. “At least it’s more interesting than taking a boat.”

“That’s one word for it,” he sighs, but as he looks up at the sky a deep sense of relief begins to fill his bones. He’s got everything he needs, and all that’s left in front of him is a simple swim and then he can cast the spell and break the curse. As soon as tomorrow, he and Bellamy might be free. It’s the end goal he’s always been searching for, but a big part of him never believed he’d actually get there one day. 

Clarke leaves him, then, returning to the side of her girlfriend who didn’t want anything to do with him. She tells him how to get to the lake in the morning, and she says she’ll see him off then, one last time. “Thank you,” he tells her as she leaves. 

She turns once before she leaves, nodding, and then she’s gone. Murphy knows he doesn’t deserve her kindness, not now, not after everything, but it still warms his heart. Maybe, just maybe, everything will all be okay in the end. 

Murphy thinks that this might be true, but then he lays down to sleep next to the fire, and he can’t seem to rest. He stares into the flames, knowing they will not consume him but almost wishing that they would - it would be better, he thinks, to burn in them for eternity than to have to lay here for one more second, rest evading him. The thought of Nyx visiting his dreams again coupled with the images of Bellamy destroying the garden keep him wide awake, even as the night stretches onwards into morning. 

Maybe it’s better that way. 

* * *

Eventually, he forces himself to stand, though he’s tired and his muscles ache for just a second more of rest. He hadn’t slept, not even for a second, and when he thinks about it he realizes he hasn’t had a proper night’s sleep since the night of Raven and Emori’s death. The godly side of himself allows him to push his body’s limits like this, but the mortal half of him is straining, exhaustion growing. 

Murphy doesn’t allow himself to dwell on it. He can sleep, he thinks, when Bellamy’s free and safe. With that, he extinguishes the fire and sets off through the woods, following Clarke’s instructions as to how to find the lake from the night before. 

He isn’t sure if he wants to see Clarke or Lexa again, and he almost hopes that they’re long gone when he gets there, but no such luck. When he emerges from the woods, he sees Lexa leaning against a tree close to the shore, her arms crossed close to her chest while Clarke says something he can’t quite hear. Murphy hangs back, knowing he should give them a second. Really, he shouldn’t intrude on them at all, but after his conversation with Clarke last night he knows better than to try and slip away silently again. 

The lake is beautiful, and he chooses to focus his attention on this rather than make himself heard. A pleasant breeze drifts across it, giving the whole place an aura of peace and tranquility. It stretches out into the horizon, shimmering softly in the sunlight. He can tell why Clarke said it would work - there are no signs nearby or any kind of identifying markers that can tell him where in the world he is. Honestly, he isn’t even completely sure what time of year it is. It’s not the first time that he’s been completely and utterly lost, but it is the first time that he’s happy to be. 

“Murphy,” Clarke calls, and he realizes he’s been spotted. He looks over at them, and attempts to smile, but immediately Lexa looks away from him and chooses to focus on the ground instead. He can’t blame her for that, but in the morning light, his guilt is suddenly much more palpable. 

Deciding that it’s best if he leaves their space as quick as possible, he walks briskly to the shore. The closer he gets, the more out of place the lake seems. The thick forest trees just suddenly end, and the shoreline comes out of nowhere, so much so that he thinks if he wasn’t properly looking at it, he’d wander right into the water without even noticing. “Thanks,” he says to Clarke, and though he looks over at Lexa to do the same to her, she doesn’t meet his gaze. 

“It shouldn’t take you long,” Clarke says, gesturing out to the open water. “As long as you, you know, stay lost.”

“I don’t think swimming out into a lake is going to change that,” he says. He’s about to get ready to go, when his bag of supplies jostles on his shoulder and he pauses. This isn’t like the pond in the garden that magically kept everything dry - this is regular, earthly water. 

Clarke notices his quandary. “Are you saying you haven’t enchanted that yet?”

“I never got around to it,” he replies, softly, feeling a little embarrassed he’s never run into this problem before. Murphy always knew that it wasn’t the smartest move to keep all his stuff in a simple drawstring bag, but he’d always had bigger issues to solve first. He looks out to the lake again, knowing that the island of Ogygia is within his reach, but also knowing that it would be pointless to arrive there with all the things he needs destroyed. “Maybe I should just get a boat. I can become lost again, right?”

From where she leans against the closest tree to the shoreline, Lexa scoffs. Murphy glances over at her in surprise. Her arms stay crossed, and she doesn’t come closer or look at him, but he doesn’t mind. His heart lifts, just a little, at the fact that she’s acknowledging him at all. “There’s a golden apple in that bag,” she calls, “or have you forgotten?”

He ignores the slight insult, looking over at Clarke as she nods in realization. “That’s true,” she says. “The same magic that was in the garden is in that apple. It’ll protect you  _ and  _ the bag.”

“Are you sure?” he asks, glancing over at the lake again. Gently he steps into the water, his boots immediately getting wet and staying that way, even when he steps back onto dry land. 

“I’m sure,” Clarke says. She looks at Lexa for confirmation, but she’s still not looking over at either of them. 

Murphy hesitates, but then he sighs and nods. If he moves fast, he can make it to the island before the day’s even half over, and by sunset he and Bellamy might finally be free - together. Besides, after everything, he doesn’t think Clarke would lie to him, not about this. He takes off his boots and his jacket, knowing they’ll just weigh him down during the swim, and leaves them on the shore. Maybe one day he’ll come back for them, but they’re the least important things in his mind. 

“Hey, Murphy,” Lexa calls, and he turns, his toes in the water. “How do you know that Nyx won’t just curse you again?”

He bites his lip, thinking it over. Of course, many times through the years, he’s thought about this, and the truth is, she very well might. “I don’t know,” he admits, “but if she does, I’ll just break that one, too.”

“How brave,” she comments, her tone completely flat, her arms still crossed, but - she’s meeting his gaze. 

He remembers the first time he met Bellamy, all those thousands of years ago, in the meadow with the flowers blooming all around them.  _ For a mortal, you’re pretty brave,  _ he’d said to him, and he thinks that now, it’s his turn to bear that cross. “Maybe,” he says, “but I would do absolutely anything to make sure he has a chance at freedom. I hope you can understand that, and - one day, I hope you can forgive me for it.”

Lexa’s eyes soften, for only a second, but it’s enough. “I hope that one day I can,” she says, and he nods, grateful. It’s far more than he expected her to say, and far more than he deserves from her. 

“Thank you,” he says, to both of them, but only Clarke smiles and nods. “For this, and - for everything.”

“Of course,” she says. “Good luck out there, okay? And if it works, and you save him, then - maybe one day you can visit us again.”

He grins. “Where are you both going to go?”

Clarke sighs. “I don’t know,” she says. “But we’ll figure it out, I’m sure of it.”

Murphy pauses. “Raven and Emori’s main home was in Anchorage,” he says. “Hidden out of the way of passersby, but I know it’s marked on the window by a large painting of a crocus flower. There’s information in there about all their safehouses, all over the world. You don’t have to go there, of course, but - I know they’d trust you with it.”

Her eyes shine and she smiles. “Thank you,” she says, softly. “It means a lot that you would tell us that.”

“Of course,” he says, and then he turns back to the water, engaging it in a staredown as he sizes up the challenge in front of him. He should have slept the night before. The swimming hasn’t even yet begun, and already, he feels exhausted. 

Clarke and Lexa get ready to leave, walking towards the treeline. He hears them behind him, and he doesn’t look back until Clarke calls out one last time. “Promise me one thing, Murphy,” she says. 

“What is it?” he asks. 

“Save him,” she says. “Make all of this worth it, okay?”

He looks at her, and he can do nothing but nod and watch as she turns back, taking Lexa by the hand and vanishing from his line of sight.  _ Save him.  _ That was the last thing Raven had said to him, and now it’s probably the last thing he’ll ever hear from Clarke. Murphy knows that the goddess isn’t dead, and she has a full life ahead of her with Lexa, but still he feels like he’s lost something as he stares at the treeline. 

It’s no matter. He doesn’t have time to focus on it. Instead, Murphy steps into the water, moving forwards until it hits his waist, and then he begins to swim for it. 

* * *

As per usual, Murphy regrets his choice of action right when it’s too late to turn back. 

He’s swimming through the chilled water of the lake as fast as he can, yet there’s no land in sight no matter how far he goes. Exhaustion is hitting hard. It weighs down his bones so much so that he’s sure he’s going to start sinking, but he keeps moving, never relenting for a second. 

Murphy knows, all too well, he can’t afford to slow down. Bellamy’s safety depends on it. Every time his pace starts to drag, the image of the dying garden flashes back into his mind and he moves even faster than before. Still, there’s a point at which he knows the human side of him will simply stop listening and give out on him, and he’s all too aware that he’s approaching this moment at a rapid pace. 

The water seems to grow even colder. He grits his teeth and bears it, the only sound in his ears the  _ splash _ of the water as he kicks and his own rapid breathing. Right now, he thinks, he’d do anything to have been the son of Poseidon, the god of the oceans. Maybe then he’d be able to make it to the island without going to all this trouble. Maybe then - 

He doesn’t get to finish this thought. Somewhere behind him, a loud, horrible  _ howl _ rings out over the lake. Murphy’s limbs freeze with shock and he stops swimming for the first time since leaving the shore, treading water as he looks behind him with slight hesitation. He knows that sound. He knows that sound, all too well, but oh, how he hopes that he’s wrong. 

As Murphy looks back, his chest tightens with fear and he draws in a shaky breath, mind going blank. He is, of course, not wrong. He’s lived too long to be mistaken about these sorts of things. 

A smoky  _ arei _ spirit drifts through the sky. If not for the distinctive dark colour, he might think it’s nothing but a thin wisp of a cloud. For a moment, he and the spirit do nothing but stare at each other, both of them locked in place, both of them challenging the other to make the first move. Murphy knows his fire will work, even though he’s in the middle of the water. Before, he was able to keep them at bay, but after learning what he did in the garden he’s pretty sure he can take one  _ arei,  _ easy. 

With another howl, the  _ arei  _ splits in two, then four, and then the sky is crawling with them. All pretenses of a plan of attack go out the window. Murphy dives back into the water, the  _ arei _ at his back. There’s only one thing to do. There’s only one thing he  _ can  _ do, and it’s the very same thing that he’s been doing for two thousand years - he retreats. 

He swims through the icy cold lake with everything he has. There’s water in his eyes and he isn’t sure if it’s from the lake or tears from the fear and exhaustion, but he presses onwards, begging the island of the lost to come into view. Above him, the sun begins to darken, and he knows the  _ arei _ are gaining on him. 

They howl, and so does he.  _ This is not how it ends,  _ he thinks, as if he has the godly power to decide such things. His heartbeat races in his ears and somehow he’s able to hear it over the rush of the water and the screams of the spirits chasing him, and as the race continues, a fiery sense of determination replaces just a fraction of the fear. 

The  _ arei _ are right behind him, so close he can almost feel their wispy tendrils against his back. His body aches and resists as he pushes it to its limit. Murphy’s eyes close, his feet kick, and his hands push through the lake, meeting only water, until - 

There’s land beneath his grip. He comes onto it roughly, scrambling out of the water on all fours. Lake water drips down from his hair and into his eyes but he opens them anyways, seeing that he’s crawled onto the shore of a large and sweeping island that he swears wasn’t here only seconds ago. He’s so taken aback by the sudden appearance of his safety that it takes him a moment more to realize that the howling has stopped, and behind him, the  _ arei _ are gone. The sun shines down in a clear sky. Aside from the rush of his heartbeat and the trembling in his limbs, there’s no sign that anything that just happened occurred at all. 

Murphy grits his teeth and looks forwards. He’s on the island’s beach, still on his hands and knees. In front of him, a twisting pathway leads through a dense jungle, lined with trees and bright green foliage. It doesn’t look like anything magical, or special, or other-worldly like he’d been expecting. He’s not even sure he’s found Ogygia at all, but he must have, because otherwise he can’t explain how the island quite literally appeared out of nowhere. 

_ It doesn’t matter,  _ he thinks, trying to shake away his confusion and fear, but his heart doesn’t stop racing. His vision blurs, and the shaking in his limbs gets worse. Still, he does his best to stand. The drawstring bag, somehow still securely on his bag, jostles as he makes it to his feet for only a second. Murphy takes a step, and then another, and then promptly falls back down onto the beach. 

The mortal half of him has grown tired of his relentlessness, and his godly side is tired of overcompensating. Sand sticks to his wet cheek and he thinks that his bag has fallen to his side, and he wants to turn over and grab it, to make sure the golden apple did indeed protect all his stuff from the water, but he can’t make his muscles move. His mind grows hazy, so much so that he barely registers the voices that appear above him, much less so the danger that this presents. 

“Is he dead?” someone asks. 

There’s a small kick at his side, but he can’t elicit a reaction to even this. “I don’t think so,” someone else replies. “He wouldn’t have made it here if he was dead, right?”

A pause. “I think he’s dead.”

_ I’m not dead,  _ Murphy wants to say, but then even thinking gets to be too much for him and he slips into unawareness. Bellamy’s face is the last thing that he thinks of, the anger and betrayal of two thousand years of suffering in his eyes. If he could, Murphy would apologize. He hopes that Bellamy isn’t too angry with him for having to take just a little bit longer. 

Then, Murphy doesn’t think of much of anything at all, and though it’s a delay in his quest, he can’t lie - it’s a welcome reprieve. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope this chapter was alright! it was giving me a fair amount of trouble for some reason and ending up taking longer than normal, so, sorry about that! hope it was good despite. i'm excited to be getting into the end of the story - it /is/ going to be ten chapters, so, we're nearly there really! 
> 
> feel free to come find me on twitter @reidsnora :)


	8. eight.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Hello, darling. Sorry about that.  
> Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here,  
> sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell  
> and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known.  
> You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together  
> to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back."

**Then-;**

Exactly one year after first being cursed, Murphy revisited the clearing where it happened. 

This was an idiotic move on his part, he knew, simply because of how predictable it was, but - he couldn’t help it. Murphy had always been a romantic at his core. He had to see it again, and so as the sun hit its highest point on that day he found his way back to the entrance of the Theopetra Caves. Slowly, he wandered through the grass, looking around at the clearing that seemed so perfectly peaceful despite all that happened here. 

He held the arrow, the same one he’d ripped from the tree trunk a year earlier, tightly in his grip. All this time had passed, and he’d held onto it. It was both the only weapon he carried and the only thing that he had to remind him of home - after all, he couldn’t risk going back to the village. He couldn’t risk bringing a destructive Bellamy back with him. 

_ Bellamy.  _ It always ached to think of him, but it hurt especially then. In his mind’s eye he could see the scene of Nyx cursing them so clearly and it felt even worse than it did then, knowing that a year of this torture had already passed them by. It had been a year of non-stop movement on his part, never sleeping for more than a few hours at a time and never staying in one place for too long. Sometimes, he thought he saw his hunter’s shadow, but after their initial confrontation a year ago he’d somehow managed to keep outrunning him. 

Bellamy was the one cursed to do all this alone, but Murphy had found himself lonesome, too. He couldn’t risk putting anyone else in danger. The burden of a solution was on his shoulders for this one, he knew that, but so far he was at a total loss. He didn’t know how to save them - all he knew was how to keep running. 

The clearing was bleak to look at. He didn’t know what he was hoping to achieve by coming back. With a resound sigh, Murphy looked up at the sun one more time, taking in whatever beauty he could make of the moment, and then he got ready to leave and return to a lifetime on the run. 

Murphy turned around and made eye contact with Bellamy, who was standing right by the edge of the clearing. He held a small knife in his hand that glinted off the light of the sun. As he stood there, never taking his eyes off the demigod for even a second, he slowly raised the weapon, so it was ready to throw. 

“Bell,” Murphy whispered, eyes going wide. It had been exactly a year since he had last seen him. It had been exactly a year since he had gotten even a glimpse of the man that he loved, and the man who was trying to kill him. He knew that he should run, but - not a single part of him wanted to move. The arrow he’d brought was still clutched in his hand, but he did nothing to defend himself.

Bellamy’s eyes narrowed, his arm still raised and the knife still held tight in his grip, the point of it aimed right at Murphy’s neck. Any second now, he could make the throw, and they both knew it would make its target. Murphy did nothing but wait for his own demise.  _ He’s so beautiful,  _ he thought, as he stared at the sunlight gliding off Bellamy’s silhouette. If this was it, then - his last moments would be peaceful ones. 

Yet, Bellamy’s hand wavered, only slightly, and then he lowered the knife. “Murphy,” he called out. 

Hearing his voice again, after all this time, was enough to make Murphy’s breath hitch and he took a step back in surprise. He should be dead. The curse should have forced Bellamy to throw the knife, and he doesn’t understand why he hasn’t yet. “Bellamy,” he finally said. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Is it?” Bellamy mused, slowly coming closer. Each step he took through the grassy clearing seemed soft yet full of purpose. “I wouldn’t know.”

Murphy didn’t know what this meant, but he stayed put in the middle of the clearing, only watching as Bellamy came closer and closer. He should have known that Bellamy would easily follow him here, and truthfully, the more he thought about it, the more he’s sure he  _ did _ know. He wanted a chance to see him again, no matter the price. This, though, he hadn’t expected, and he doesn’t know what to make of a cursed Bellamy who can somehow speak freely. “There’s hope, then,” he finally said. 

“Hope?”

“We can beat the curse,” Murphy continued. “You said to me, a year ago, that you could hear Nyx in your head and it was impossible to refuse her what she wanted. You said that you couldn’t fight through the curse, but you clearly are, right now, so - there’s hope.”

Bellamy shook his head, finally coming to a stop right in front of him. Their near proximity was either threatening or romantic, but either way, it made Murphy’s heart race. “No,” he said, firmly. “It’s true, though, that she’s always in my head. Even now, I can hear her.”

“She’s not telling you to kill me?”

“She is.”

Murphy paused, taking in all of Bellamy’s features, just in case he never saw him again. The sun lit up the otherwise quiet clearing. Despite everything, for a second, they were nothing more than two boys in a meadow, only inches apart. “But I’m still alive,” he finally said, no more than a whisper. 

Bellamy tilted his chin up slightly in amusement, gazing at him as he did so. If Murphy hadn’t known any better, he would have said that he looked at him with nothing but love - but he knew that was nothing more than wishful thinking. “She’s not worried about it,” he said, just as quietly as Murphy, “because she knows that you won’t run away.”

Dying in this meadow would be a very, very bad decision, he knew, not for himself, but for Bellamy’s sake, as he would then be cursed to wander the world alone for the rest of his life, never once stopping. At least with them both alive and locked in the curse’s grip, they could have slight moments of reprieve to treasure. “Is that the only reason you won’t kill me?” Murphy asked. “Is there nothing else?”

Bellamy’s lips curled up into a smirk. “Do you think that I love you?”

“Don’t you?”

A pause. “Maybe,” he said, “in another life, I could have.”

“You did,” Murphy pressed, knowing that he was shattering the moment, and being unable to stop himself anyways. “Are you telling me you don’t remember that? You don’t remember any part of the life we shared?”

Bellamy’s expression soured and he took a step back, fingers tightening on the handle of the knife. “No,” he snapped. “I know what you think we have, but honestly, Murphy, I don’t care. You mean nothing to me.”

He let out a breath, the words stinging him more than he wanted to admit. “But I’m still alive,” he repeated, “so I know that’s not true.”

“It’s not all about  _ you _ !” Bellamy cried out, the anger he carried with him everywhere having risen to the surface. Murphy didn’t know how much of that anger was real and how much was forced onto him from the curse, but either way, it hurt to see how weighed down Bellamy had become from it all. 

“Isn’t it?” Murphy asked, not because he was selfish, but because for him, it was all about Bellamy, and it always would be. 

Bellamy’s eyes narrowed as he stared at him, something cold and dark filling his expression. When he spoke, his voice was low and flat, and it chilled Murphy down to his core. “I don’t remember my parents. I don’t remember where I come from, or what my life was like, or where I lived before all this. Sometimes, when she finally lets me sleep, I wake up and it’s days before I remember my own name, or where I am, or what I’m doing there.”

“Bell-”

“I know that I had a sister, once,” he continued, “but I don’t know what she looked like. I don’t remember her name.”

Murphy fell quiet, chest tightening. What was he supposed to say to that? “I’m sorry,” he said, and he truly was, but Bellamy didn’t acknowledge he’d even spoken. 

“All I think about is you,” he said, “and how I  _ have  _ to kill you. All I think about is how you are responsible for stealing my life away from me, Murphy, and there is no world in which I would ever love you for that.”

Tears sprung to the corner of Murphy’s eyes and he forced himself to look away, biting his lip to keep his composure. “I’m sorry that she did this to you,” is all he managed to say. 

“Are you saying that you didn’t?”

“No,” Murphy said, quickly. “I did. I played a part in this, and for that, I am sorry.”

Bellamy just shook his head. “You’re sorry? Oh, that fixes everything,” he snapped, sarcasm dripping from his tone. 

“I know it doesn’t,” he said, a newfound determination mixing with the fire in his blood and burning just as hot, “so I’m going to fix this. I don’t know how, but I’m going to make up for what I did, and I’m going to free you from this.”

“You can’t.”

“I promise you, Bellamy,” Murphy continued, “that I will free you from this curse, no matter what. I swear it on my life.”

Bellamy laughed, but it was darker and much more twisted than it should have been. “Your life doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“Fine,” Murphy said, “I swear it on my love for you.”

There was a pause. For a second, pure shock shone through Bellamy’s sunlit eyes, but then his demeanour changed. Murphy could see the exact moment in which what was left of  _ his _ Bellamy slipped away and the curse asserted its dominance, wrapping around every single inch of him. Wordlessly, he took another step forwards and drew the knife he carried back, ready to end the hunt in seconds. 

Murphy knew he couldn’t let either of them die here. He owed it to him, he knew, to break the curse. Every piece of magic could be extinguished, and this one might have been godly in its origins, but he was more of a god than he’d like to admit. Somehow, he  _ knew _ he could do it - but he wouldn’t be able to if Bellamy stabbed him, right here and now. Running wasn’t an option, either. The knife would be thrown before he’d made it more than a couple steps. There was only one option that saw them both emerging from this with their lives intact, though it ached to even think about. 

He still held the arrow in his right hand, and before Bellamy could do anything about it, he reached back and then pushed it forwards, the point finding its way into Bellamy’s throwing arm. As soon as it made impact, he gasped and let go of the knife, the blade falling to the ground without a sound. Both of them staggered back in various states of shock. 

“Murphy?” Bellamy whispered. The wound wasn’t anywhere close to fatal, but it was deep enough to draw blood that now ran down his arm and onto his side, slowly dripping down onto the earth below. He didn’t seem to be in pain, not even as he stumbled and pulled the arrow out himself, but the hurt in his eyes was palpable. Whatever small part of him was still the Bellamy he knew hadn’t been expecting that, and despite everything else, felt deeply and utterly betrayed. 

“I’m sorry,” Murphy said, and then he turned and fled the clearing. If Bellamy made any attempt at following him, he never saw it. 

* * *

Murphy returned to that very clearing only one more time after that, no more than a couple days after he’d encountered Bellamy there. He was going to be passing it by anyways, and it felt so very wrong not to look at it just one more time, so he could be reminded why it was exactly that he was doing his very best to break a godly curse. 

Something was different this time, though. Immediately upon entering, his eyes were drawn to a single piece of white amidst a patch of red flecks on the grass, that he knew had come from the wound he’d given Bellamy. Still, he walked over to it slowly, eyes widening as he realized what it was that he was looking at. 

Small red droplets were scattered amongst the green grass, and right in the center of them lay a small white calla lily flower. Its stem was broken but the flower itself remained intact, save for a red spot on one of the petals that he knew was Bellamy’s blood. The glass case that it had once been in lay discarded only an inch or so away. 

He knew, with the utmost certainty, that it was the very same flower that had been given to him on their first meeting. It was the very same one he’d given back to Bellamy before he’d come to the cave in the first place. Murphy never would have guessed that he’d have kept it, this past year, but perhaps more of Bellamy’s humanity remained than he had thought. 

Not anymore, though, that much was obvious. This was a message. The Bellamy that he’d known, the one he’d fallen in love with, didn’t exist anymore. All that was left in his place was a twisted, wretched version created by a goddess who thrived on fear and chaos. 

Murphy would save him. He knew, as he crouched down and tenderly picked up the flower, that he would do this. “I swear it,” he said, softly. 

He would save him, but for now, he would allow himself to sit in an open clearing as the sun shone behind him, hold the calla lily close to his chest, and weep. 

**Now-;**

_ Nyx visits him in his dreams. He doesn’t know if it’s the real her, or if he’s imagining her being there once again, but he feels the fear and chaos she evokes all the same.  _

_ “Ogygia,” she comments, her dark eyes boring into him. All around them is pitch black darkness. He can’t even see himself, but her figure seems crystal clear. “That was a bad move on your part.” _

_ “Wrong,” Murphy says. “I’m one step closer to beating you.” _

_ She doesn’t seem bothered. “This island is imbued with potent magic,” she says. “It’s foolish to think that I cannot follow you here.” _

_ “Your  _ arei _ couldn’t.” _

_ “No,” she agrees, humming. “You escaped them, for the second time. You’re becoming quite the thorn in my side, Jonathan Murphy.” _

_ Murphy’s afraid, down to his very core. In this dream he’s got no sense of himself but he swears he’s trembling, shaking like a leaf in the wind, but he’s determined not to let it show. “That’s right,” he says. “And I’d do it again.” _

_ To this, she says nothing. “Ogygia was a bad move,” she repeats. “It is so very foolish of you to think that I would not follow you there. ” _

_ He says nothing. He can’t say anything - he can only feel the fear fill his bones, the pure panic fill the space in his chest where his heart should be, and with one short breath he screams- _

Murphy jolts awake, sitting straight up, his heart racing and breath coming quick and fast. His fingers grab onto something soft below him. He’s expecting sand to fill his grasp, but it takes him a second longer than it should to realize that he’s been moved, somehow, from the beach that he remembers falling asleep on. 

He’s sitting on a soft white bed, and though he’s wearing the same clothes he was when he swam through the lake, somehow they’re just as soft and clean as the sheets. Beside the bed is his bag of belongings, still completely intact. There’s some kind of half-shelter stretching over him, so that on his left there’s a solid wall made of wood and a roof covers the bed, blocking the sun from hitting his face, but on his right he can see the sprawling beach and the very lake that he’d come from. It’s dark out, meaning that night has fallen, but the first rays of the sun are just beginning to poke out through the sky. Despite the time of day, it’s easy for him to see, and he suspects this must have something to do with the island’s magic. A cool breeze hits his face and this calms him as he sits quietly, doing nothing but watch the churning water. It’s a beautiful and striking image, but it is nowhere near as surprising as the man who sits in a chair next to the bed, fast asleep. 

Murphy sits for a while in silence, waiting for the stranger to awaken and explain what’s going on, but he doesn’t stir. He looks young, maybe around Murphy’s own age, and nothing about him seems all that notable at all except for the large pair of goggles on his forehead. “Hey,” Murphy says, gently, and then louder, “Hey!”

Finally, this gets him to wake. When he sees that Murphy’s looking at him, he bolts up and onto his feet. “Hi,” he finally says, simply. “What’s up?”

He blinks, unsure of what to say. “I was hoping you’d tell me that,” he says. 

The man raises an eyebrow at him. “Why would I do that?”

Murphy glances around the beach, slowly pulling the blankets aside and rising from the bed. Before anything else, he grabs his drawstring bag and throws it over his shoulders. “Isn’t this your island?” he asks, taking a chance because he’s got a feeling that this stranger won’t be all that helpful. He hadn’t heard of anyone living on Ogygia, but it also wouldn’t be the oddest thing. 

“It’s not just  _ mine _ ,” he replies, “but I live here, yeah. You’re the one that just showed up, which is why I asked - what’s up?”

“What’s up,” Murphy repeats, dryly, shaking his head. He takes a couple steps out onto the sandy beach, stretching out his tired and aching muscles. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“What are you looking for?”

He looks back at the man, noting how he doesn’t seem aggressive in the slightest. Rather, he seems to genuinely want to know, like he really wants to help Murphy despite not even knowing him. “What am I looking for?” he repeats, still unsure of what to say. 

“Everyone who comes here is looking for something they lost,” he answers. “So what did you lose?”

“I lost the love of my life,” Murphy replies, flatly, looking back over the water. 

The man hums, as if this is a common answer. “Well, you’re the only person to have come here in awhile,” he says, “but there might be something here of theirs, if you want to browse. That’s fine with me.”

Murphy turns, taking in the scope of the island as he does. With the water behind him, he sees the shelter in front of him, and then a dense jungle just past that. There’s a twisting pathway leading through the foliage, and he guesses that’s where he needs to go. All he knows is he needs the waters of Ogygia during his spell, and while the lake might be enough for a god, he needs all the extra magic he can get. 

Still, he’s curious about the man in front of him. He can guess that he’s one of the people who had found him when he’d collapsed on the beach, but he doesn’t understand his role here. “Who are you?” he asks him. 

The man smiles, so widely and with so much true joy that Murphy can’t help but do the same. “I’m Jasper,” he says. “I’m a guardian of Ogygia.”

“I’ve never heard of Ogygia having guardians.”

“No, most people haven’t,” he says. “That’s okay, though - it’s just me and Monty. We watch over this place, and we help the people that come here find what they’re looking for.”

The breeze drifts across the beach, blanketing the dark shoreline in tranquility. “Why?” Murphy asks. “Why do you help people that come here?”

Jasper’s eyes shine. “Anyone who finds their way here is lost, in more ways than one,” he says, “and we all need some help, sometimes.”

“You just - help people? Without gaining anything for yourself?”

“Of course,” he says. “Monty and I, we know what it feels like to be truly lost. We wouldn’t wish that feeling on anybody. If given the power to, would you not help people find their way again?”

He likes to think that he would, but - he isn’t sure. Rather than lie to what might be the most genuinely kind person he’s ever met, Murphy just nods his acceptance of the answer. “I need to cast a spell with the waters of Ogygia,” he says, “and I need as much magic as possible. Can you help me with that?”

Jasper only smiles. “Of course I can,” he says. “Follow me.”

He walks towards the jungle and to the one visible path through it. Murphy watches him, for a second, taking in the breeze and the calmness of the shore for just a moment longer, before following.  _ This is it,  _ he thinks, as he hurries to catch up to Jasper. After two thousand years - he’s made it. His bag jostles against his shoulder, and as he walks, he smiles. 

* * *

  
  


The jungle is thick, but the path is wide enough to make it easy to pass through. He’s still able to clearly see the path in front of him despite the lack of sunlight, making the journey easy. Murphy notices as they move towards the center of the island that several objects lay out of place, tossed amidst the greenery. He sees several pieces of jewellery, scattered amidst the foliage, as well as a pair of shoes, a book so worn he can’t read the title, and a mug with the handle broken off. They all seem unrelated to each other, and he can’t for the life of him figure out how any of them could have gotten there. 

“What’s all this stuff?” Murphy calls out to Jasper. He looks down to see a glittering golden watch next to his feet. 

“This is the island of the lost,” Jasper replies. “Everything lost finds its way here, eventually. All of these things once held value to somebody, somewhere, and now, we hold onto it for them.”

Murphy glances over the scattered objects. “Seems a little disorganized,” he says. “How is anyone meant to find this stuff if it’s just somewhere in the jungle?”

Jasper’s ahead of him, so he can’t see his face, but somehow he knows that he’s wearing an easy smile. “Everything that’s lost eventually finds its way home,” he says. 

He doesn’t reply to this, instead continuing to walk behind Jasper in silence. Absentmindedly, he wonders if anything he’s carried over the years have ended up here. Now that they’re gone, he wonders too if Raven or Emori’s belongings now reside in Ogygia. The thought of this stings, just slightly, and he stops trying to find all the scattered objects in the foliage. He doesn’t think he’d be able to continue on if he sees something of theirs, and he can’t afford to stop, not when he’s this close. 

“You mentioned someone else was here,” he says, instead, to take his mind off of it. “Monty - is it just the two of you?”

“Yes,” Jasper replies. “It’s just Monty and I that live here. He’s my partner, too. You’ll meet him when we get to where we’re going.”

“Partner?”

Jasper laughs. “He’s the other guardian of the island, but he’s also my husband, too, if that’s what you mean.”

Softly, Murphy smiles. “That’s lovely.”

“It is,” Jasper agrees. “I’m very lucky being able to share my life with someone like him.”

“He sounds like a great guy.”

Jasper hums. “He’s the one that dragged you off the shore and into the shelter, so, you have him to thank for that.”

Murphy laughs. “And what, you just wanted to leave me there?”

“ _ I  _ thought you were dead.”

“Do dead bodies often wash up onto your magical island?”

“No,” he says, “but there’s a first for everything, right?” 

Murphy doesn’t get a chance to ask more about this, as right then, they arrive at their destination. Jasper pushes a low-hanging branch out of the way, revealing a small clearing in the middle of the jungle. It’s small and circular, completely surrounded by the jungle on all sides, and in the centre of it is a small pool of hot water. Steam curls up from the pool and stretches into the sky. 

Another man sits by the pool, reading a book and reclining against a rock. He looks up as they enter, and by the smile that he gives Jasper, Murphy assumes that this is Monty. “Hi,” he says, closing the book with an easy smile and standing to greet him. 

“Yeah, hi,” Murphy says. “Apparently I’m supposed to thank you for helping me out on the beach, so - thanks.”

“Not a problem,” Monty replies. “Jasper here was going to leave you. I made him guard you to make up for that.”

“I was wondering about that,” he admits, remembering how Jasper had been sitting in the chair in the shelter when he woke. 

Monty shrugs. “Can’t have demigods roaming freely on an island like this,” he says, “especially not cursed ones.”

His eyes widen at this, trying to recall if he’s told either of them the truth about his situation, but knowing that he hadn’t. “How do you know that?”

“Your curse is so big, it’s impossible to miss,” he replies, and Jasper nods his agreement. “We guard an island of lost things. It’s not hard for us to see what it has taken from you.”

Murphy bites his lip, pausing as he thinks this over. “So you understand, then,” he says, “why it is that I’m here.”

“We do,” Monty replies, “and we will allow you to use the waters of our island for our spell. This pool, right here, is the most potent source of magic on the island. I would warn you that it burns, but - I suspect that’s not a problem for you.”

Murphy smiles, feeling pure exhilaration at how very close to freedom he finally is, but he has to be sure it’s true. “There’s no catch?” he asks. “I don’t know how much magic I’ll need.”

Jasper laughs. “We’re not going to run out.”

Monty looks over at him with love and adoration, slowly making his way over to stand at Jasper’s side. “There’s no catch,” he says. “We’ll stay with you, obviously, but you’re free to use it as you wish.”

“It’s dangerous,” Murphy says, glancing between the two of them, noting how deeply in love they are and being hauntingly reminded of Raven and Emori’s fleeting happiness. “I dreamt of Nyx last night, and that always means bad things are on the way.”

“We’ll be fine,” Monty promises. 

“Besides,” Jasper says, “we’re the guardians of this island. We’re not going to run away just because danger might be present - we’re going to do our job.”

Murphy nods. “Okay. Well - thank you, then. This means everything to me.”

“I can tell,” Monty says, softly. “We have to watch you to ensure you aren’t using our island’s magic for a wicked cause, but - we can tell your intentions are honourable. We know that you are doing this to reclaim what it is that you’ve lost, and after all - that’s the very purpose of Ogygia.”

“Thank you,” he whispers, taken aback by the sudden sentiment. He hasn’t earned their kindness, he knows it, but he’s so deeply grateful for it. 

They exchange a loving look, and then step back towards the outskirts of the clearing, leaving him to it. He sees them grab each other’s hand, and he smiles, before bending down next to the steaming water and sliding his bag off his shoulders.

Murphy’s hand trembles slightly with adrenaline as he begins to remove the necessary contents for the spell, still in disbelief that he’s really made it this far, and it’s all about to end. He opens Hecate’s spellbook to the page that he needs, and then takes out the piece of the Golden Fleece he’d collected all that time ago. He puts the shimmering golden apple next to it, and then finally, he takes out the small calla lily flower, the drop of red on its petal glaringly visible in the night. 

He can feel the magic from the apple and the waters of Ogygia melding with his own, almost begging him to use it. He looks up at the sky, smiling as he sees the first rays of the sunrise beginning to enter the sky. Murphy remembers what Lexa had told him about sunrises and sunsets in the garden, all that time ago.  _ It is the point between two worlds - between an end and a beginning,  _ she’d said.  _ It is the point at which the world is at its weakest - and we are at our strongest.  _

Magic flows through him. As the start of sunrise begins, he’s filled with the most power that he’s ever going to hold. He’s ready. He’s got everything he needs, and before dawn breaks, it’s going to be over and done with. He’s ready - 

And then, Bellamy steps into the clearing. 

Monty and Jasper do nothing about this, as if expecting his arrival, but Murphy falters. “Nyx sent you,” he realizes, knowing now that the goddess really had visited his dreams last night. 

Bellamy hums in agreement. He’s got a long, shining bow on his back and a quiver full of arrows that he didn’t have in the garden, no doubt a gift from Nyx herself. “She did.”

“We’re so close to freedom,” he says, “and you’re here to kill me anyways, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

Murphy watches him pace around the clearing for a few seconds, but then the sun rises an inch and the fire in his chest burns with more than determination. He closes his eyes, letting the magic flow through him once more. There’s so much raw energy coursing through him that even though his eyes are shut, he can sense where Bellamy is, where Monty and Jasper stand, and he can hear all their heartbeats in his ears. He may be half-mortal, but in this moment, Murphy’s never been closer to being a god. 

“It’s time to end this,” he says, his voice echoing around the clearing. 

“Yes, it is,” Bellamy agrees, and he nocks an arrow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so....how are we feeling about the finale??? :D
> 
> in regards to this fic, though, sorry this chapter was a lil short - just gotta get the setting clear before the final showdown! hopefully there won't be too much of a wait on that, and then this story is done. thank you to everyone who has been reading and commenting and showing love, u are all so lovely, and i am endlessly appreciative. 
> 
> as always, i'm on twitter @reidsnora (spoiler warning for the finale, though!)


	9. nine.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He was not dead yet, not exactly -   
> parts of him were dead already, certainly other parts were still only waiting for something to happen, something grand,   
> but it isn't always about me, he keeps saying, though he's talking about the only heart he knows—  
> There's a niche in his chest where a heart would fit perfectly  
> and he thinks if he could just maneuver one into place—  
> well then, game over.”

**Then-;**

A thousand years passed them by. Murphy’s determination never wavered for a second. 

He spent all that time moving around the mortal world, chasing down leads on nymphs and demigods and spirits who could tell him the information that he was searching for. Most of the time, they never had anything to say, but it was better to have a purpose than lament on his lot in life. 

Raven helped, when she could. “It’s not fair,” she told him, during one of his brief visits. He would never stay long. Bellamy could show up at any time, after all, and the last thing he ever wanted to do was put her in danger. 

“Of course it isn’t,” he said, “but that’s the way of the gods, right?”

She nodded, deep in thought. “I need to do something to help,” she said. “There are others like you, Murphy, who have been cast out or harmed by the gods. There are so many out there with nowhere to go.”

Murphy shrugged. “It’s always been that way, hasn’t it? I mean, look at you, Raven - I’m sure the gods could have healed your leg, if they wanted to, and yet they made you live with it.”

Raven looked at her bad leg and the brace wrapped around it, a sense of determination filling her gaze, much like the one burning Murphy’s chest. “It has always been this way,” she said, “but it doesn’t have to be.”

“I don’t want you to put yourself in unnecessary danger, Raven.”

“You’re not our father, Murphy, please.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, and thank the gods for that.”

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “Look,” she said, “I was talking to one of the goddesses on Olympus, and there are others who feel dissent. At the very least, I could set up a system down here, so that there’s always a safe place to go for people who need to escape the gods, even just for a little while.”

“Like - safehouses?”

“Exactly,” she said. “I know Emori would help, too.”

Murphy didn’t miss the adoration in her eyes when she said the goddess’ name. “Emori? Isn’t she Hermes’ daughter, goddess of journeys, or something?”

“Goddess of journeys and pathways,” Raven corrected. 

He hummed. “She could help with a safehouse network like that then, yeah,” he said. “Just - be safe, okay?” Murphy began to get ready to leave, knowing he had stayed in one place for just a little too long. 

“I always am,” she promised. “You be careful too. I heard that one of Hecate’s spellbooks went missing the other day. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“Me? I’m perfectly innocent,” he said, waving a dismissive hand and ignoring the way the bag on his back jostled from the weight of that very spellbook. Murphy gave Raven a quick hug, pulling his jacket tightly around his shoulders as they broke away, and then he moved to the door. 

“Come back soon,” she called from across the room. 

“I will,” he said, “and next time I’ll have to meet your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my-,” Raven began to call out, but then stopped herself. “Well, maybe she is, actually.”

He hummed, turning back to smile at her newfound happiness, and then walked out of her small cabin and into the woods. It wasn’t the least bit surprising that she wanted to dedicate her life to helping others, even if it put her in danger, but he supposed if she had a goddess on her side then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. He’d never met Emori, as he made it a point not to associate with gods, but if there was anyone in the world who deserved love it was his sister. 

Murphy didn’t make it far before Bellamy ran out of the woods and tackled him to the ground. 

They crashed to the ground in a heap, rolling over the dirt ground. He didn’t get a chance to recover before Bellamy was on top of him, pinning him to the ground, a wild look in his eye. “Bellamy,” he said, in between breaths that seemed hard to take into his lungs, “you haven’t aged a day.”

Bellamy didn’t seem to find this funny. Instead, he increased pressure on his hold, pushing Murphy’s shoulders down into the dirt. He didn’t seem to have any kind of weapon with him, or any belongings at all, and thick dark circles ran under his eyes. This was a desperate attempt.  _ The only actions you are allowed to take must be to further your progress in the hunt,  _ Nyx had said, a thousand years ago when she’d cursed them in the clearing. Murphy supposed that sleep and rest didn’t qualify, and now, this was an immortal hunter trapped in a mortal body that was about to give out. 

“I’m close,” Murphy continued. He didn’t know why he bothered talking to him at all. Maybe it was because he hoped that just a small piece of the Bellamy he knew was in there somewhere, deep down, able to hear him, but the wildness and anger in his eyes showed no evidence of this. Yet - he still wasn’t dead. There had to be a reason for that. There had to be a part of him that resisted the curse, even now. “I’m close to freeing us. I have the Golden Fleece, and I have Hecate’s book. I just need to find the garden, Bellamy, and then it’s over.”

Bellamy clenched his jaw, moving one hand off of Murphy’s shoulders and leaning to press his arm against his neck in a move to choke him, but he didn’t apply any pressure. It was a bad move, probably made from exhaustion, but even though one of Murphy’s arms was now free he didn’t do anything to resist. “No,” Bellamy said, though whether he was talking to himself or Murphy was unclear. 

“I’m so close,” Murphy said again, “so, please - don’t do this. Just this one time, let me go, and then we might never have to do this again.”

Above him, Bellamy leered, but Murphy felt no fear - only sorrow that it had come to this. “I can’t,” he said. 

Murphy’s heart broke open, just a little more, even though he was expecting it. “I know.”

“No,” he said, and then Murphy looked back into his eyes, his own widening as, for the first time in a thousand years, he didn’t see the curse looking back at him. Instead, for just a moment, he was nothing more than the Bellamy he knew. For a moment, there was no maliciousness in his gaze, and though he didn’t release Murphy from the hold, he was nothing more than a terrified boy who only wanted to rest. 

“Bellamy?” he whispered, afraid that the moment would shatter. 

“I can’t, Murphy,” he said, his voice breaking with strain and emotion. “I can’t let go.”

Murphy only smiled. “I know.”

He shook his head, shutting his eyes. “Please,” he choked out, and though it was just a word, Murphy understood what he meant. 

Bellamy’s muscles tensed, and from the slight increased pressure on his neck, Murphy knew their time was over. The curse, though it had never left, was now back in control. Still - it was proof enough. His Bellamy was in there, still a brave mortal set on fighting the gods even a thousand years down the line. It was enough. He would take care of the rest. 

“I’m so sorry,” Murphy whispered, and then with his free hand, he reached up and grabbed Bellamy’s hand. Heat brewed beneath his skin and though his palm didn’t catch alight, the contact was enough to burn, and immediately Bellamy drew his hand away and fell back. He stayed on the dirt ground, clutching his burned hand, staring up at the demigod with nothing but anger. 

Normally, Murphy would run, but something made him stay. He watched as Bellamy attempted to stand, but his limbs shook too much and he couldn’t even make it off the ground. Yet, every time he would fall roughly back onto the dirt, the curse would force him to get back on his feet. He never once made it to a standing position, yet there he was, trying again and again. 

_ Please,  _ Bellamy had said, and Murphy understood what it was he wanted. Slowly, he walked over to him and then behind him, getting down to his level. He sat on the dirt, right behind Bellamy’s shaking form, and then without a word he reached forwards and gathered him in his arms. 

For a second, Bellamy fought, but it was short lived. He had no weapons, and he barely had the energy to stay awake, let alone escape the hold. Murphy did nothing but keep him close to his chest as he struggled aimlessly, and then settled, limbs falling as Bellamy’s humanity won out and his mortal body simply gave up, forcing itself to rest. 

Murphy stayed like that for a while, even as the sun began to sink below the clouds and darkness swept over the forest. Finally, with a sigh, he gently let go, lowering Bellamy down to the ground and making sure he was as comfortable as one could be on a dirt path. As an afterthought, he took off his jacket and bundled it up, placing it under his head as a pillow. 

It wasn’t the best place to leave him, but the area was uninhabited, and he was sure that Bellamy would wake soon, resetting the whole cycle. “I’m close,” he said out loud, even though nobody was listening. “I promised you, a very long time ago, that I was going to save you, even if it cost me everything. I’m going to keep that promise.”

Bellamy only slept. Murphy watched over him for a few seconds more, and then he turned and began to walk down the path. The garden of the Hesperides was out there somewhere, and one day, he would find it. He knew he would. Even if it took him another thousand years, one day, he would succeed in his quest and he would set everything right again. His father and the oracle had both told him that he had a destiny to fulfill, and though he didn’t believe in predetermined fate, he was sure that this was it. 

As he always did, the burning boy carried onwards, always moving forwards, illuminated not only by the light of the sunset, but the fire he carried in his chest. 

**Now-;**

The first arrow misses its mark. 

Murphy can tell exactly where it’s going as soon as it’s fired, his senses exponentially increased thanks to the magic in his system. In his mind’s eye, he sees it lost in the foliage before this becomes a reality, the arrow now joining the vast collection of lost items on the island. He wonders, vaguely, how long it will take for someone to find it. He wonders if they’ll question how an arrow could hold enough sentimental value to somebody for it to wind up on the island of the lost, especially when it missed its mark. 

“You missed,” Murphy says, as an afterthought more than anything. 

“Not for long,” Bellamy promises. There’s truth to that, so quickly Murphy checks that Monty and Jasper are still hidden out of harm’s way. He’s more than a little relieved to find out that they are. Surely, he thinks, they were aware of Bellamy’s presence on the island, yet they let Murphy stay and start his spell anyways, despite the danger it would bring. He’s grateful for their sacrifice and silently, he vows to make sure that they both make it through this to the other side. He won’t bring about the death of yet another pair’s love, not again. 

Steam curls up from Ogygia’s waters, and Murphy comes back to himself, remembering his purpose for being here. He hadn’t planned on Bellamy being here when he cast the spell, but he knows he can’t let even that stop him, not now. “We’re close,” he mutters, ignoring the way Bellamy stalks around the clearing, like a predator closing in on its prey. 

The pages of Hecate’s spellbook flutter in the slight breeze, practically begging to be read. There’s magic in its words, and he feels it and takes it as his own, the spell he needs coming into his mind without him having to read a single sentence. All the ingredients lay scattered by his feet, and though he hadn’t been too sure as to what he should do with all of them, it now becomes clear. Without saying a word, he kicks the Golden Fleece, the apple from the Hesperides’ garden, and the spellbook itself into the steaming pool. It hisses and sputters, boiling water bubbling in the pool as the magic of the objects mixes with that of the island itself. 

“What are you doing?” Bellamy snaps. 

“Saving us,” Murphy says, quietly, trying to ignore him and stay focused. All the physical ingredients are now joined. He picks up and holds the calla lily in his hands, knowing that there’s still one more ingredient that has to be added, though not quite yet. 

It’s as if the magic itself is speaking to him as he closes his eyes, still able to sense everything in the clearing without having to actually see it.  _ Take the magic,  _ it says,  _ and focus on your will and intent. Then, wash the blood of the cursed in the waters of the island, and you will be free.  _

He knows all this, and he tightens his grip on the flower. There was more than one reason he’d kept it with him, all these years. The fire in his blood grows stronger and stronger, burning so brightly that when Murphy gently opens his eyes, he can see a faint glow beneath his skin. 

Bellamy growls, across the clearing. Now, with an almost godly power, Murphy can see the darkness that clings to him, swirling around his silhouette, akin to Nyx herself. He understands now what Monty had meant when he said that his curse was easy to see. Without trying, his fire glows just a little bit brighter. 

“No,” Bellamy says, another arrow ready to fire. “You can’t save us from this.” He fires again, and it hits the ground an inch shy of Murphy’s foot, causing him to stagger back slightly. The magic falters, only for a second, but he grabs hold of it before it can dissipate. He’s no god. It needs time to grow to the strength that he needs it at before he can put in the last ingredient he needs, but with Bellamy’s aim getting truer, he doesn’t know if he has the time. 

Murphy watches him for a moment, taking in the way that he seems to be in a constant war with himself. “Did Nyx tell you I’d be here?” he asks. It’s not that he wants to bring up the goddess, but he needs to find a way to distract Bellamy so that he has enough time for the magic to grow to the level he needs it at. Only as a last resort will he fight him - if he doesn’t have to bring Bellamy harm, he won’t. 

“She knew you would be,” Bellamy replies, slowly making his way around the pool, coming towards Murphy. He stares at him curiously, and at his skin that both burns and glows with light, and just for a second, he’s nothing more than a curious mortal who only wanted to understand the world of the gods. “But I’ve been here before.”

“You have?”

“This is the island of the lost, Murphy,” Bellamy says, as though it’s obvious. “I’ve been lost a lot.”

Murphy sighs, softly, lamenting the past two thousand years in a single breath. “Me, too.”

“Without you,” he continues, though it looks like the words are so hard to say they cause him visible pain. “I’ve been lost a lot, without you.”

“Me, too,” Murphy repeats. Right now, he’s got the magic of a god, but his voice is barely more than a whisper. 

Bellamy takes a step, then stops, turning his head to the side as if listening to silent instructions. He is, Murphy supposes - even now, Nyx must be here, seeing through the hunter’s eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” he finally says, raising his bow yet again. “It’s over, now.”

He’s not going to miss. Murphy can see the arrow’s path perfectly, and he knows without a doubt, that it’s going to hit him right in the heart and then it will be done. Bellamy may have been able to resist for two thousand years, but now Nyx’s influence is going to stomp out his defiance, and he’s going to kill him in a second. 

“I’m sorry,” Murphy says, and he waves his hand, ever so slightly. The burning magic inside him flies outwards, and as if he’s light as a feather in the wind, Bellamy goes flying backwards. He lands somewhere in the thick foliage, tossed aside, and he doesn’t return. Murphy only knows that he’s survived because he can hear his heartbeat in his own ears, even though he’s a fair distance away. 

He realizes, as he now stands alone by the water, that he’s no different than the gods he’s spent thousands of years being angry at. Pure, raw magic has been in his blood for only minutes, yet he’s already acted as careless as the gods do, tossing away mortals with nothing more than a wave of his hand. It makes his stomach twist. Maybe, he thinks, he doesn’t deserve to be free, not if he’s capable of acting like the very beings that did this to him in the first place. 

The magic inside him burns, and now that he’s no longer accepting of it, it hurts. Any second now, the strength of it is going to tear him to pieces. This is why he’d wanted to summon Emori to help him carry some of the load. His body isn’t meant to hold this much power, yet still, he persists, because it’s not quite as powerful as he knows it needs to be.  _ Focus on your will and intent,  _ it says to him again, and he does. 

_ Bellamy,  _ he thinks, over and over again, and this is enough to get him through it. 

Far above the island, the sun is just starting to peek over the horizon, getting ready to bring about the dawn of another day. Murphy, though, is glowing even brighter, illuminating the whole clearing and the island outside of that. He holds the flower tightly and stretches out his arms, raising his head up towards the sky, taking in the power of a changing world. 

He feels it, right as the magic ceases to hurt and rather it flows through him easily, ready to be used. His muscles tense while exhilaration and anticipation, knowing that this is the moment. This is the moment he’s been waiting for, all this time. All he’s got to do is join the blood on the flower and the blood that burns underneath his glowing skin with the water, and then the curse will break, and he’ll be able to run to Bellamy’s side without fear. 

It’s over. It’s done. He stands next to the pool, ready to complete his quest, and then - 

“Watch out!” Jasper calls, stepping out from where he’d been hiding in the foliage. Murphy blinks, shocked, but then he turns around to see Bellamy staggering to the edge of the clearing right across from them, bow and arrow ready in his hands. 

The arrow is aimed right at him, but as soon as Jasper speaks, Bellamy’s trajectory changes. It’s hard for him to miss when it comes to Murphy, but everyone else is nothing but a necessary casualty to him. That much was made clear at the garden, when he’d killed the Hesperides to get to him without a single hesitation, and now as the arrow lines up with Jasper’s heart he knows that he’ll do the exact same here. 

Jasper’s right behind Murphy, standing only a few inches over. Time seems to slow as the gravity of the situation sinks in. He could do nothing, and complete the spell, but he won’t have time to do so before the arrow is fired and kills Jasper. He could send Bellamy flying, once again, but then he’ll have to wait for the magic to build back up and more importantly, he doesn’t think he has the strength to do that to him, not again. There is nothing he can do to stop the arrow from being fired. Murphy is only half-god, after all, even now. He may be able to see all the potential carnage of the universe, but he’s too much of a human to do anything about it. 

Except - there’s one solution left. The oracle may never have given him a proper quest, but Murphy realizes now that, all this time, he’s made his own.  _ One day, your destiny will come and collect you,  _ were the last words his father had said to him, and he suspects now that it has. 

_ I promise I will free you from this curse,  _ he’d said to Bellamy, a very long time ago.  _ Even if it costs me everything. _

_ Make sure you save him,  _ Raven had told him, right before sacrificing his life so that he could do just that. 

_ Save him. Make all of this worth it,  _ Clarke had said, as she left his side to forge a life for herself and for Lexa, who he had taken everything from in pursuit of his own goals. 

_ I will,  _ the burning boy says to them all, glowing brighter than the rising sun.  _ I will.  _

Murphy takes one step to the left. The steaming pool on his right, the flower clutched in his hand. The arrow fires. Magic flows underneath his skin, but it hits him anyways. 

Bellamy’s eyes go wide as he drops the bow on the ground. “I missed,” he whispers, horror in his voice. “I - oh, Murphy, I missed.”

“No, you didn’t,” Murphy says. Behind him, Monty’s pulled Jasper back into the foliage, back to safety, and though he knows he’ll never see them again it brings him peace to know that they’ll be okay. 

The arrow’s sticking out of his chest, close to his heart, but it doesn’t hurt. He brings a hand to the wound, the same one still holding the calla lily. Blood blossoms from it and coats both his skin and the flower in bright, dripping red. The magic inside him conceals the pain, at least for a moment, but his knees go weak and he falls to the ground anyways, next to the pool of water.  _ Bellamy,  _ he thinks, and as the magic begins to leave him he knows that the spell is nearly done. 

He falls onto his back, head tilting up towards the sun now rising up into the sky. With a peaceful exhale, the magic rushes out into the universe, and he uses the last of his strength to put his hand in the steaming water next to him. He keeps a hold of the calla lily, where both his own and Bellamy’s blood mix and wash clean in the water. It’s hot, but it doesn’t burn him, either because he’s the son of the god of fire, or because he’s dying. 

Bellamy’s at his side, then, hands trembling over the wound and Murphy’s body. “I missed,” he whispers, and there’s a franticness to his gaze, pure panic on his features that hasn’t been there in two thousand years. 

“No,” Murphy says, softly, gazing up at the sky. He doesn’t feel a thing, but he sees a dark, smoky spirit rise up from his body. An identical one leaves Bellamy’s chest, and they rise up into the sky, disappearing in the light of the sun. Nothing feels different, not for him, but as he watches the spirits vanish, he knows the curse has truly been broken. 

It’s over. His quest is completed. The cycle, as it always does, begins anew. 

Bellamy’s eyes go wide, and he blinks, coming back to himself properly after two thousand years of suffering. “Murphy,” he whispers, and then it’s like he sees the wound for the first time, and he lets out a cry. “I did this to you, didn’t I? Oh, Murphy-”

“It’s okay,” he says, and it is. He’s sacrificed everything, but he’s done it for love, and that’s what makes it right. In the end, he knows that no god would ever make that choice. 

“No, it isn’t,” Bellamy says, but he holds Murphy against his chest, anyways, knowing that the end is coming. 

Murphy hums, and his eyes close, a blanket of peace covering him. He’s in the arms of his love, and the sun is rising above them, and the world is beginning anew. It’s all he’s ever wanted for an eternity, and now even though his immortal life is coming to an end, he knows he doesn’t want anything more. Bellamy will have a chance at the mortal life he’d been denied for so long. Maybe one day, they’d have a chance to meet again. The thought of this brings a smile to Murphy’s face as he drifts off. His heart is so full of love, yet it slows all the same. 

For the first time in two thousand years, Bellamy Blake allows himself to weep. He holds the burning boy close to his chest as he dies, and his fire is snuffed out for all eternity. “I love you,” he whispers, and a tear falls down his cheek and gently lands on Murphy’s face. 

_ I love you, too,  _ Murphy thinks, and though he isn’t able to say it aloud, he knows that Bellamy understands. His hand goes limp and releases its grip. An age old flower, once white and now stained red, falls into the waters and becomes lost, as all things eventually do. 

Much like the darkness, all immortal things must one day die. As the start of sunrise breaks through the sky, Jonathan Murphy takes his last breath, and then - it is over. 

“Thank you,” Bellamy sobs, but there’s no one left to hear it. 

* * *

Murphy wakes in a meadow. 

Gentle grass rubs against his skin as he sits up, glancing around at the brilliant green all around him and the bright flowers that are scattered all around him, in every colour imaginable. The sun is at its highest point in the sky and he feels warm, but for the first time in all of eternity, he does not feel like he is on fire. 

He remembers the curse breaking. He remembers dying. He remembers drifting away as he lay in Bellamy’s arms for the last time, yet, he does not ache at these thoughts. It was the right decision to save Jasper’s life. Bellamy is free, now - and that’s all that matters. 

“Murphy!”

He stands, looking behind him, crying out as he sees who it is. “Raven!” he yells, running over the soft grass, flinging his arms around her. They’re in the afterlife, he knows, but she feels so, so real. 

Emori walks up to them as well, and with tears in his eyes he hugs her, too, his heart bursting with joy. “It’s good to see you,” the goddess says. 

“Believe me, the feeling is mutual,” he replies, finally stepping back, his wide smile never once faltering. Despite where they are, they both look perfectly at peace, and even happier than they had the last time he’d seen them. 

After a moment, though, Raven reaches out and lightly hits him on the shoulder. “You’re not supposed to be here,” she snaps. “Not yet.”

He blinks. “I died, Raven.”

“Yeah, so did I,” she says, “so that  _ you _ wouldn’t.”

Murphy’s smile falls, for only a second, but then it’s as if the melancholy is forcefully removed from his shoulders and his peace is once again returned. “I saved him,” he tells them. “I died saving him.”

“You broke the curse?” Emori asks. “You really did it?”

“I did.”

Raven’s eyes sparkle in the sunlight. “So - Bellamy’s alive? And he’s free?”

He nods. “He’s alive,” he says, “and he’s free - unless, of course, Nyx gets to him once again.”

She exchanges a look with Emori before replying. “I doubt she can,” she says. “Bellamy’s blood was on that flower, right? That’s what you used to break the curse?”

“Yeah,” he says. He’d told her about the flower, a very long time ago, but he’s surprised that she remembers, and that she knows about the last piece of the spell. 

“Then if the flower is still in Ogygia’s waters,” she continues, “so is his blood. I can’t say for sure, of course, but that means the water is going to keep him free of curses for all eternity, right?”

Emori nods. “It makes sense. Ogygia’s magic will keep Bellamy safe, for as long as he lives.”

Once again, tears spring to Murphy’s eyes, out of relief more than anything else. “So it’s really done,” he says. “It’s over. I did it.”

“You did it,” Raven says, and then she gestures around at the meadow, ever so peaceful. “Now what?”

He looks around. “Is this Elysium?” When they nod in affirmation, he knows exactly what he’s going to do. As the stories go, the world of the dead held several different levels. Most souls went to the fields of Asphodel for eternity, while the bad ones went to be punished. The good, however, went to Elysium, where they would have a blessed and happy life for all of eternity. Those that went to Elysium, however, were also given a second choice - they could be reborn, back into the mortal world.

When he looks up at Raven once again, she nods, as though she already knows his answer. “I thought as much,” she says. “Come on.”

He walks with them through the meadow, becoming more and more sure of his choice as he notes their happiness. This may be Elysium, and his sacrifice may have earned him a place here, but he can’t help feel that something is missing. Without it, he knows he won’t ever be as content as he could be. 

A single stream runs through the meadow, and this is what they walk up to, stopping just before its edge. The water is crystal clear, a bright sparkling blue. It runs as far as the eye can see in either direction, and though he can’t be sure, he thinks he sees Gaia lounging by its edge, very, very far away. 

“Are you sure about this?” Raven asks. “You can’t change your mind.”

“I am,” he says. It’s an easy choice for him, really.

Emori hums. “Time works differently here,” she says. “Fifty years could have passed on earth, or no time at all. It might not work out.”

“It will.” He doesn’t know how, but he’s confident in this. “Bellamy will get a chance at a happy, mortal life, and then he’ll make it here, too. I know he’ll make the same choice - and then we’ll both be reborn, whenever fate decides that we should be.”

Raven laughs. “That’s putting a lot of faith in fate.”

He shrugs. “I made my own fate in my life,” he says, “so why can’t I do it again, here?”

She scoffs, but still, she smiles. After a moment, however, she sighs. “I know this is best for you,” she says, “but I’m going to miss you, Murphy.”

“Me, too,” he says, knowing that if he goes ahead with this and drinks from the stream, as the stories say he should to make this choice, he won’t remember anything from his previous life. It feels somewhat careless, to toss away two thousand years for the faint hope of finding what he’s already got once again, but he knows that this is the right choice in the end. Before he does, though, he has to be sure. “Are you happy here, Raven?”

“I am,” she says, glancing at Emori with a smile. “I told you, Murphy - I got my happy ending, and now I get to have that for all eternity. Maybe one day we’ll both be reborn, and do it all over again, but for now, we’re happy here.”

“Good,” he says, and then with a deep breath, he nods. “It’s my time, then.”

“I’m proud of you,” Raven says, and then she hugs him one more time, tighter than all the times before. Emori smiles at him and embraces him as well, and then she takes her wife’s hand and they leave, walking back through the meadow. 

Murphy sits by the stream for a while. He isn’t sure how much time passes - it could have been hours, days, or even years. Eventually, though, he feels as ready as he’s ever going to be, and he reaches into the stream. 

It’s cold as it hits his skin, and he laughs, remembering how a very long time ago, he’d once been able to light his hands on fire even underneath the water. He looks down the stream, and this time, Gaia’s looking back at him. She smiles, and he waves, a simple  _ thank-you _ for leading him to his answers all that time. 

Murphy feels completely and utterly at peace as he lifts a handful of the water to his lips and drinks. Almost instantly, an icy feeling spreads through his veins, and he lays down, his back on the grass, his eyes staring up at the sun. He’d done all he needed to do, and now - now it was time for whatever came next. 

In one second, Jonathan Murphy exists, and in the next, his spirit no longer does. 


	10. ten.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We were in a gold room where everyone finally gets what they want,  
> so I said, What do you want, sweetheart?  
> and you said Kiss me.  
> Here I am leaving you clues.  
> I am singing now while Rome burns.  
> We are all just trying to be holy."

**Then-;**

Once upon a time, there was a boy. 

Once upon a time, there were gods and magic and monsters and all of those horrible things that last forever, but - there was also love. There was so much love, and right in the middle of it all, there was a burning boy who gave up everything in order to save his. 

The gods and their magic and, in turn, their monsters, may always have a say in the fabric of the universe, but there came around a time where mortals didn’t care all that much. There came around a time where humanity could stand on its own two feet, despite all its instability and turmoil. There came around a time where they could recognize that the gods and the monsters were one and the same, and in spite of that, the magic of their own existence was not going anywhere. 

There once lived a burning boy who gave up his life to save his love. His story is one of sacrifice, and the realization that curses, pain and tragedy do not last forever so long as there is love to be found - but this is only one ending to that story. There are a thousand others, throughout the stars and the cosmos, and there will be a thousand more as the universe goes on. 

In the end, the universe always goes on. 

Once upon a time, there was a boy who spent his life learning that love is its own kind of magic, far more important than gods or their monsters, and thanks to his sacrifice, the universe carries onwards, and the cycle begins anew. 

For - that was then, and this is 

**Now, & Forever:**

Murphy hurries down the busy city street, bag full of lecture notes tossed over his shoulder. He’s late for his morning class, as per usual, and when he checks his watch he realizes that there’s no way he’s going to make it in time. With a sigh, he takes a slight detour. If he’s going to be late, he might as well get coffee on the way. 

He’s not looking where he’s going and as a result, he bumps into a girl on his way to the coffee shop’s door. “Ah, sorry about that,” he says, and he’s about to carry on, but something about her makes him stop. She’s got long, braided hair that frames her face and a gown that seems to change colour if he looks at it hard enough, but - he’s sure that’s just because he hasn’t quite woken up yet. 

“Murphy,” she says, somewhat surprised. “You succeeded, then? Or does this mean you’ve failed?”

He raises an eyebrow, confident he’s never seen this girl before in his life, and not sure as to what she’s referring to. “Do I know you?”

It looks like she’s about to say something, but then stops and thinks better of it, a small smile forming on her face. “No,” she says. “I suppose you don’t.”

“Um - okay?”

“I’m Lexa,” she says. “I suppose we’ve had a... _ class  _ together at some point.”

He nods. “Oh, okay. Sorry, I didn’t recognize you.”

“Don’t worry,” she says, “it’s been a very long time.”

Murphy bites his lip, not sure what to say. He’s not been awake long enough for an interaction this awkward. “Sure,” he finally settles on. 

Lexa stares at him, for a moment, and her expression turns serious. “This will not mean anything to you,” she says, “but since I will never see you again - I forgive you, Murphy. You should know that.”

He has no idea what this means, but he’s saved from having to answer when another girl comes over, throwing her arm around Lexa’s shoulders “Hi,” she says, her light blonde hair bouncing slightly with the movement. “I’m Clarke, and this is my girlfriend.”

“Yeah, hi,” he says, still not sure what to make of this interaction, instead busying himself by checking his pockets to make sure he did bring his wallet. “Um - sorry about running into you like that. Maybe I’ll see you in - what class did we have together?”

Yet - when he looks up, they’re walking away. Clarke casts one look over her shoulder, and he swears he’s seen her somewhere before, but then they’re lost in the crowded streets of the bustling city. For a second, he considers following them to ask what they were talking about, but then he thinks better of it and shakes the interaction from his mind, entering the coffee shop instead. 

There’s no one else in line when he enters, so he goes right up to the counter. He’s never seen the person working behind the counter before, and when he turns to take his order, Murphy’s heart leaps in his throat.  _ He’s beautiful,  _ he thinks, and then immediately gets flustered at having thought that at all. 

“Hi,” the worker says. His name tag reads  _ Bellamy,  _ with a small smile drawn next to it. When he smiles, Murphy feels as though he’s known him for a thousand years, even though they’ve only just met. “What can I get for you?”

Murphy’s about to order his usual, but there’s something that stops him. Some very small part of him is convincing him to take a chance on this, for reasons beyond him, but it’s just early enough in the morning that he’s got enough confidence to go with it. “What’s your favourite thing on the menu?” he asks. 

Bellamy seems surprised, but he laughs. “My favourite thing?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll have whatever your favourite thing on the menu is.”

He pauses, and then nods with an easy shrug. “Sure thing,” he says. “That’s brave of you. Consider it on the house.”

“Oh, you don’t have to-”

“No, it’s fine,” Bellamy says. “And if you like it, then maybe that’s enough incentive for you to come back.”

Murphy smiles. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that.”

He laughs, but then another customer queues up behind him, so he moves to the end of the counter to wait for his drink. The coffee shop is playing a classics radio station, and as he waits, he taps his foot along to a song that he’s never heard.  _ I get knocked down, but I get up again,  _ the singer says, and he can’t disagree with that. 

After a few minutes, Bellamy comes up with a cup in hand that he slides a sleeve onto and then sets it down on the counter gently. “I never got your name,” he says as he does so. 

“It’s Murphy.”

“Murphy,” he repeats, “well, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“How formal of you,” he scoffs, but he smiles all the same. 

Bellamy grins. “Please accept my offering,” he says, gesturing to the cup with a mock half-bow. Murphy rolls his eyes, but in endearment, and he takes the cup that’s been given to him. 

“Thank you,” he says. “Seriously - I appreciate it.”

“Not a problem,” Bellamy replies. With one last grin, he goes back to his job to help the next person in line, and Murphy walks out of the coffee shop and onto the street, joy in his heart. 

The cup isn’t very hot, so he removes the sleeve, and as he slides it down he sees a phone number written in black marker on the side.  _ In case you don’t come back,  _ is written right next to it, with a smiley face beside it that matches the one on Bellamy’s name tag. 

Murphy laughs, shaking his head with almost disbelief as he carries on down the street, in much less of a hurry to make it to where he’s going. He tries the drink as he walks, and finds that it’s sweet but not overpoweringly so, and though he hasn’t had anything like it before, it may just be his new favourite drink on the menu. 

The sun shines down on the city, far above him in the sky, and though he isn’t sure exactly why, Murphy feels completely and utterly at peace with the universe. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's the end! i hope you all enjoyed it :D a couple things:
> 
> -a big, big thank you to my fellow murphamy writers, [blueparacosm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueparacosm/pseuds/blueparacosm) & [oogaboogu.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oogaboogu/pseuds/oogaboogu) they have been so lovely and encouraging this whole time while writing this fic, and have allowed me to talk endlessly about it while hyping me up all the way. they've got some phenomenal stories of their own, so please go check them out. 
> 
> -i wrote most of this fic while listening to charlie's fantastic murphamy playlist. it's 16 (!!) hours long, and every song is so perfectly them. i greatly encourage you to check it out, and you can find that [ here. ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Ydqzlxtm8SJrflK2GyRJs?si=_lBWDTPhRmKn344qJWO66w)
> 
> -thank you so much to everyone who left lovely messages and comments. it means the absolute world to me, and i'm so happy that people have enjoyed this story. thank you for giving it a go. you can find me on twitter @reidsnora, if you like. as for what's next for me - i'm thinking a certain post-finale fic that, as i often make happen, defies the canon rules. thank you all again. stay safe. lots of love <3


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